THE  LIBRARY 

OF 
THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
RIVERSIDE 


GIFT  OF 

Dr.  Kate  Gordon  Moore 


IN' 


VOL.    I 


TOWN   LIFE 


IN 


THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY 


MRS.    J.    E.    GREEN 


TWO    VOLUMES 
VOL.  I 


Honlion 
MACMILLAN     AND     CO. 

AND    NEW    YORK 

1894 

fte  Sight  of  Translation  and  Reproduction  is  Reserved 


RICHARD  CLAY  AND  SONS,  LIMITED,. 
LOXDOX  AND  BUNGAY. 


IN   MEMORY   OF 

JOHN    RICHARD    GREEN 

MARCH,  1894 


n 


PREFACE 

IN  the  twenty  years  which  have  passed  since  Mr. 
Green  drew  his  brilliant  sketch  of  the  early  life 
of  English  towns,  and  of  their  influence  on  the 
history  of  English  liberty,  the  study  of  the  subject  in 
this  country  has  advanced  but  little ;  and  it  is  not,  I 
think,  too  much  to  say  that  the  pages  of  his  History 
still  present  the  most  vivid  and  suggestive  picture 
which  we  possess  of  the  mediaeval  boroughs — a 
picture  inspired  by  ardent  sympathy  and  emotion. 
In  this  rapid  and  original  survey  the  true  proportions 
of  civic  history  in  our  national  life  are  boldly  drawn  ; 
and  the  burghers  and  shopkeepers  of  the  towns,  long 
neglected  and  despised,  take  their  place  in  the  dis- 
tinguished ranks  of  those  by  whom  our  freedom  has 
been  won  by  their  sturdy  battle  against  oppression, 
leading  the  way  in  the  growth  and  elevation  of 
the  English  people,  and  carrying  across  the  ages  of 
tyranny  the  full  tradition  of  liberty.  But  the  history 
of  this  great  civic  revolution,  which  in  Mr.  Green's 
day  cannot  be  said  to  have  existed  at  all,  has  since 


viii  PREFACE 

then  remained  strangely  neglected  among  us.  While 
in  foreign  countries  the  study  of  the  origin  and 
growth  of  municipal  institutions  has  been  recognized 
as  of  overwhelming  importance,  and  has  already  em- 
ployed the  erudition  and  tried  the  ingenuity  of  a 
long  succession  of  scholars,  English  historians  have 
stood  aloof.  No  English  name  figures  in  the  contests 
of  the  schools  ;  nor  is  any  English  authority  called  to 
witness  when  a  learned  theory  is  advanced  to  solve 
the  riddle  ;  and  if  from  time  to  time  foreign  scholars 
attempt  to  draw  English  towns  within  the  range  of 
their  generalizations,  the  lack  of  sufficient  or  trust- 
worthy materials  at  their  disposal  makes  the  result 
vain  and  unfruitful.  No  country  indeed  has  been  so 
backward  as  our  own  in  municipal  history,  whether 
we  take  it  from  the  popular  or  from  the  scientific 
side.  The  traveller  who  has  asked  at  the  bookshop 
of  a  provincial  town  for  a  local  history  or  even 
for  a  local  guide  is  as  well  able  to  realize  the 
distance  which  parts  us  from  France,  Italy,  or 
Germany,  as  is  the  student  who  inquires  for  a  de- 
tailed account  of  how  civic  life  or  any  one  of  its 
characteristic  institutions  grew  up  among  us.  A 
certain  number  of  town  histories  do  indeed  exist,  but 
they  by  no  means  always  deal  necessarily  or  even 
mainly  with  the  life  of  the  borough  itself.  To  a  con- 
siderable number  of  local  antiquaries  the  buried  relics 
of  the  Roman  dominion  have  proved  a  permanent 
and  pre-occupying  interest.  For  the  student  of 
mediaeval  times  the  monastery  and  cathedral  tower 


PREFACE  ix 

high  above  the  squalid  market-place  and  thatched 
town-hall  which  lie  dwarfed  and  obscured  under  their 
vast  shadow;  and  in  modern  as  in  older  history  the 
butchers  and  brewers  who  represent  the  secular  cor- 
porations of  York  and  Winchester  are  practically  bid 
to  stand  aside  before  the  presence  of  the  spiritual 
corporations  to  whom  the  fame  of  S.  Mary's  or  S. 
Swithun's  is  committed.  Where  ecclesiastical  monu- 
ments of  historic  greatness  are  wanting,  a  fervent 
apologist  may  still  find  an  excuse  for  the  meanness 
and  dulness  of  the  municipal  story,  in  the  fact  that  at 
some  time  or  other  the  town  has  lent  its  streets  to 
serve  as  the  stage  for  a  critical  scene  in  the  national 
drama,  and  thus — through  the  lifting  of  a  royal 
standard,  or  the  tragedy  of  a  conspicuous  adventurer 
— derives  a  borrowed  title  to  our  interest.  That  the 
story  of  convent  and  chapter  and  solemn  pageant 
should  be  told  with  full  detail  I  do  not  question.  I 
only  urge  that  when  the  tale  is  finished  we  still  wait 
for  some  notice  of  the  city  itself  and  the  humble 
details  of  its  common  life.  There  are,  it  is  true, 
signs  of  increasing  interest  in  such  matters,  and  some 
admirable  studies  in  our  municipal  records  have 
lately  been  made  in  England ;  nevertheless  the  work 
is  still  at  its  beginning,  and  how  much  need  there  is 
for  further  study  I  have  had  occasion  to  know  in  the 
course  of  an  attempt  to  trace  the  developement  of 
some  forty  or  fifty  provincial  boroughs,  so  as  to  gain 
some  idea  of  the  condition  of  our  mediaeval  towns,  and 
the  general  drift  of  their  history.  The  preparatory 


x  PREFACE 

work  which  the  foreign  student  finds  already  finished 
and  organized  for  his  use,  the  English  worker  has 
in  almost  every  case  to  do  for  himself.  Even  the 
briefest  sketch  of  a  town  history  too  often  implies 
the  long  labour  of  seeking  out  a  mass  of  scattered  and 
isolated  details,  which  must  first  be  drawn  together 
into  some  connected  sequence  before  it  is  possible  to 
study  the  general  bearing  and  significance  of  the  story 
in  relation  to  the  growth  of  neighbouring  boroughs. 
Those  who  have  attempted  to  find  their  way  through 
the  uncertainty  and  confusion  of  the  materials  as  they 
at  present  exist,  will  probably  be  the  most  lenient 
judges  of  inevitable  errors  of  detail  such  as  must 
creep  into  the  performance  of  so  delicate  and 
difficult  a  task. 

It  is  evident,  indeed,  from  the  nature  of  the 
subject,  that  any  writer  who  desires  to  give  a  survey 
of  provincial  town  life  as  we  can  now  picture  it — 
from  printed  materials  scattered  in  county  histories, 
archaeological  journals,  reports  of  commissions,  im- 
perfect abstracts  of  town  documents,  parliamentary 
records,  charters,  and  stray  pamphlets — must  inevit- 
ably remain  exposed  to  much  correction  in  matters 
of  detail  from  experts  with  local  knowledge.  At 
the  same  time  it  seems  to  me  that  without  some 
effort  to  obtain  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  general 
subject,  the  student  may  leave  himself  open  to  the 
still  graver  errors  that  spring  from  the  want  of 
some  ascertained  measure  of  proportion,  and  from 
the  incapacity  to  distinguish  in  each  town  that 


PREFACE  xi 

which  is  normal  from  that  which  is  strange  or  char- 
acteristic. The  question  of  origins  I  have  deliberately 
set  on  one  side,  from  the  conviction  that  the  begin- 
nings of  a  society  may  be  more  fruitfully  studied 
after  we  know  something  of  its  actual  life.  Avoiding 
therefore  many  dark  questions,  I  have  dealt  in  the 
first  volume  rather  with  the  simpler  and  less  conten- 
tious aspects  of  the  growth  of  the  borough  to  wealth 
and  independence.  In  the  second  volume,  however, 
the  subjects  which  arise  have  long  been  familiar  as 
matters  of  acute  discussion ;  and  it  has  sometimes 
happened,  that  in  going  over  again  the  sources 
from  which  all  our  knowledge  is  derived,  I  have 
found  myself  gradually  compelled  to  entertain  views 
contrary  to  those  which  are  commonly  accepted. 
Thus,  for  example,  in  tracing  the  growth  of  self- 
government  within  the  borough  itself,  I  seem  to 
discover  in  the  phrazes  of  the  town  records  a  new 
explanation  for  the  position  of  the  "communitas" 
side  by  side  with  the  "cives" — a  problem  which,  so 
far  as  I  know,  has  never  been  really  stated,  and 
the  difficulties  of  which  are  in  no  way  met  by  the 
universally  received  interpretation.  Moreovei  the 
theory  of  an  early  triumph  and  rapid  decay  of 
democratic  government  appears  to  me  impossible  to 
maintain,  and  I  have  suggested  that  in  the  growth  of 
the  common  council  we  may  find  some  evidence  of  a 
popular  movement  towards  more  effectual  self-govern- 
ment which  seems  to  have  stirred  the  industrial 
classes  of  the  fifteenth  century.  There  are  other 


xii  PREFACE 

burning  questions  in  which  impetuous  economists 
have  outrun  the  historians,  and  have  not  found  it 
premature  to  set  in  order  by  the  help  of  accepted 
theories  the  obscure  chaos  of  social  history  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  In  spite  of  their  zealous  efforts,  how- 
•ever,  the  whole  problem  (including  even  the  ascer- 
taining of  the  facts  on  which  it  depends)  of  the  de- 
velopement  of  English  commerce  and  manufactures 
.and  of  its  effects  on  social  life,  still  awaits  the 
student ;  and  it  is  in  the  confusion  and  ignorance  which 
;at  present  prevail,  that  I  may  find  my  best  excuse 
for  the  fact  that  with  regard  to  many  questions — 
such,  for  instance,  as  the  relation  of  internal  traffic  to 
free  trade  and  protection,  the  general  organization  of 
labour,  the  position  of  the  guild  towards  the  hired 
worker,  the  attitude  of  the  municipality  to  the  in- 
dustrial system,  and  of  the  capitalist  to  the  town 
councillor — I  have  ventured  to  differ  from  conclusions 
which  are  commonly  put  forward. 

I  would  add  but  one  word  of  personal  explanation 
before  I  close.  The  only  training  or  guidance  which 
I  have  ever  had  in  historical  work  was  in  a  very  brief 
period  during  which  I  was  able  to  watch  the  method 
and  understand  the  temper  in  which  Mr.  Green's 
work  was  done.  I  never  had  the  opportunity  of 
visiting  any  English  towns  with  him,  or  of  following 
his  studies  in  that  direction.  The  most  fruitful 
lesson  which  remains  in  my  memory  is  that  of  a  day 
spent  in  Ancona  between  two  stages  of  an  invalid 
journey,  when  I  was  able  to  see  the  intense  enthusi- 


PKEFACE  xiii 

asm  with  which,  as  was  his  habit,  he  made  his  way 
first  to  the  Town-hall,  and  from  the  fragments  of 
Greek  and  mediaeval  carving  built  into  its  walls, 
from  harbour  and  pier,  from  names  of  streets,  and  the 
cathedral  crypt,  he  extracted  century  by  century 
some  record  of  the  old  municipal  life.  It  was  doubt- 
less some  such  remembrance  as  this  that  uncon- 
sciously led  me  in  the  course  of  reading,  to  turn  to 
the  story  of  the  English  boroughs.  At  the  same 
time  I  have  no  doubt  that  I  should  always  have  been 
restrained  from  any  idea  of  writing  by  my  conscious- 
ness of  the  entire  lack  of  adequate  preparation  for 
such  a  task,  if  I  had  not  felt  bound  by  an  imperative 
obligation  to  make  the  attempt.  When  Mr.  Green's 
work  was  over  he  asked  of  me  a  promise  that  I  would 
try  to  study  some  of  those  problems  in  mediaeval 
history  where  there  seemed  to  him  so  much  that  still 
needed  to  be  done,  and  so  much  to  be  yet  dis- 
covered. In  this  book  I  have  made  my  first  be- 
ginning toward  the  fulfilling  of  that  promise.  Such 
a  work  can  only  be  closed  with  feelings  of  compunc- 
tion and  dismay. 

ALICE  STOPFORD  GREEN. 

14,  KENSINGTON  SQUARE, 
March,  1894. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

THE   ENGLISH   TOWN'S    .  1 


CHAPTER  II. 

,THE   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION   OP   THE   FIFTEENTH   CENTURY    ...        35 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE   COMMERCIAL   REVOLUTION   OF  THE   FIFTEENTH  CENTURY  ...        75 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   COMMON   LIFE   OF  THE   TOWN 124 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE   TOWNSPEOPLE 169 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT  197 


xvi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VII. 

PAGE 

BATTLE   FOR   FREEDOM    (TOWNS   ON   ROYAL  DEMESNE) 226 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

BATTLE   FOR   FREEDOM    (TOWNS   ON   FEUDAL   ESTATES) 250 

CHAPTER  IX. 

BATTLE   FOR   FREEDOM    (TOWNS   ON   CHURCH   ESTATES) 277 

CHAPTER  X. 

BATTLE   FOR    SUPREMACY 3091 

CHAPTER  XL 

THE   TOWNS   AND   THE   CHURCH        333- 

CHAPTER  XII. 

CONFEDERATION 384 


TOWN    LIFE 


IN 


THE    FIFTEENTH    CENTURY 


CHAPTER  I 

THE      ENGLISH      TOWNS 

THERE  is  nothing  in  England  to-day  with  which  we 
can  compare  the  life  of  a  fully  enfranchised  borough 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  Even  the  revival  of  our  local 
institutions  and  our  municipal  ambition  has  scarcely 
stirred  any  memory  of  the  great  tradition  of  the  past, 
of  the  large  liberties,  the  high  dignities  and  privileges 
which  our  towns  claimed  in  days  when  the  borough 
was  in  fact  a  free  self-governing  community,  a  state 
within  the  state,  boasting  of  rights  derived  from 
immemorial  custom  and  of  later  privileges  assured 
by  law. 

The  town  of  those  earlier  days  in  fact  governed 
itself  after  the  fashion  of  a  little  principality.  Within 
the  bounds  which  the  mayor  and  citizens  defined  with 
perpetual  insistence  in  their  formal  perambulation 

VOL.  I  B 


2  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUKY      CHAP, 

year  after  year  it  carried  on  its  isolated  self-dependent 
life.  The  inhabitants  defended  their  own  territory, 
built  and  maintained  their  walls  and  towers,  armed 
their  own  soldiers,  trained  them  for  service,  and  held 
reviews  of  their  forces  at  appointed  times.  They 
elected  their  own  rulers  and  officials  in  whatever 
way  they  themselves  chose  to  adopt,  and  dis- 
tributed among  officers  and  councillors  just  such 
powers  of  legislation  and  administration  as  seemed 
good  in  their  eyes.  They  drew  up  formal  constitu- 
tions for  the  government  of  the  community,  and  as- 
time  brought  new  problems  and  responsibilities,  made 
and  re-made  and  revised  again  their  ordinances  with 
restless  and  fertile  ingenuity,  till  they  had  made  of 
their  constitution  a  various  medley  of  fundamental 
doctrines  and  general  precepts  and  particular  rules, 
somewhat  after  the  fashion  of  an  American  state  of 
modern  times.  No  alien  officer  of  any  kind,  save  only 
the  judges  of  the  High  Court,  might  cross  the  limits 
of  their  liberties  ;  the  sheriff  of  the  shire,  the  bailiff  of 
the  hundred,  the  king's  tax-gatherer  or  sergeant-at- 
arms,  were  alike  shut  out.  The  townsfolk  themselves 
assessed  their  taxes,  levied  them  in  their  own  way, 
and  paid  them  through  their  own  officers.  They 
claimed  broad  rights  of  justice,  whether  by  ancient 
custom  or  royal  grant ;  criminals  were  brought  before 
the  mayor's  court,  and  the  town  prison  with  its  irons 
and  its  cage,  the  gallows  at  the  gate  or  on  the  town 
common,  testified  to  an  authority  which  ended  only 
with  death.1  In  all  concerns  of  trade  they  exercised 

1   The  right  of  pit  and  gallows  was  never  formally  revoked. 
The   last  case  was  under  Charles  I.  (Rogers'*   Agriculture  and 


i  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  3 

the  widest  powers,  and  bargained  and  negotiated  and 
made  laws  as  nations  do  on  a  grander  scale  to-day. 
They  could  covenant  and  confederate,  buy  and  sell, 
deal  and  traffic  after  their  own  will ;  they  could  draw 
up  formal  treaties  with  other  boroughs,  and  could 
admit  them  to  or  shut  them  out  from  all  the  privi- 
leges of  their  commerce  ;  they  might  pass  laws  of 
protection  or  try  experiments  in  free  trade.  Often 
their  authority  stretched  out  over  a  wide  district, 
and  surrounding  villages  gathered  to  their  markets 
and  obeyed  their  laws  ; l  it  might  even  happen  in  the 
case  of  a  staple  town  that  their  officers  controlled  the 
main  foreign  trade  of  whole  provinces.  In  matters 
that  nearly  concerned  them  they  were  given  the  right 
to  legislate  for  themselves,  and  where  they  were  not 
allowed  to  make  the  law,  they  at  least  secured  the 
exclusive  right  of  administering  it ;  the  King  and 
the  Parliament  might  issue  orders  as  to  weights 
and  measures,  or  the  rules  to  be  observed  by  foreign 
merchants,  but  they  were  powerless  to  enforce  their 
decrees  save  through  the  machinery  and  with  the 

Prices,  i.  132).     The  gallows  at  Southampton  stood  on  the  com- 
mon ;  in  Colchester  at  the  end  of  East  Street. 

1  The  Inquisition  de  quo  Warranto,  Ed.  I.,  proves  that  S. 
Martin's  and  other  villages  were  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
Canterbury;  inquests  at  these  places  were  held  by  the  city 
coroner.  York  had  a  territory  of  2,700  acres.  (Agric.  and  Prices, 
iv.  579.)  The  burgesses  of  Dorchester  claimed  the  right  to  weigh 
all  goods  within  twelve  miles  of  the  town.  A  special  statute 
was  passed  in  1430  "that  they  shall  not  be  disturbed  of  their 
right,"  in  consequence  of  the  Act  of  1429  ordering  weights  and 
measures  in  every  town.  (9th  Henry  YI.  cap.  vi.)  Other 
instances,  such  as  Norwich,  Nottingham,  ic.,  are  too  numerous 
to  give. 

B   2 


4  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

consent  of  the  town.  Arduous  duties  were  handed 
over  to  them  by  the  state — the  supervision  of  the 
waters  of  a  river  basin,  the  keeping  of  the  peace  on 
the  seas.  They  sent  out  their  trading  barges  in  fleets 
under  admirals  of  their  own  choosing,  and  leaned  but 
lightly  on  state  aid  for  protection  or  revenge,  answer- 
ing pillage  with  pillage,  and  making  their  own  treaties 
with  the  mariners  of  other  countries  as  to  capture  and 
ransom  and  redemption  of  goods,  and  the  treatment 
of  common  sailors  or  of  "  gentlemen  "  prisoners.1  The 
necessity  of  their  assent  and  co-operation  in  greater 
commercial  matters  was  so  clearly  recognized  that 
when  Henry  the  Seventh  in  1495  made  a  league  of 
peace  and  free  trade  with  Burgundy  the  treaty  was 
sent  to  all  the  chief  towns  in  England,  that  the  mayor 
might  affix  to  it  the  city  seal,  "  for  equality  and  stable- 
ness  of  the  matter  ;  "  and  the  same  form  was  observed 
at  the  marriage  of  the  Lady  Mary.2  Two  hundred 
and  twenty-six  burghers  sat  in  Parliament 3  beside  the 

1  The  mariners  of  the  Cinque  Ports  drew  up  treaties  with 
"  French  shipmen,"  as  to  ransom  for  mariners,  sailors,  or  fishing 
boats  that  might  be  captured  on  either  side ;  the  people  of  the 
coast  were  to  be  set  free  without  charge,  while  "  gentlemen  "  and 
merchants  were  to  pay  whatever  the  captors  chose  to  ask.  The 
shipowners  and  merchants  of  each  port  signed  the  compact ;  and 
all  the  towns  of  the  coast  from  Southampton  to  Thanet  joined 
the  league.  The  document  which  was  drawn  up  was  handed 
over  to  the  keeping  of  the  Lord  Warden  in  Dover,  and  in  case  of 
dispute  messengers  from  the  Ports  rode  there  to  see  its  provisions, 
or  to  make  a  copy  for  their  own  guidance.  Hist.  MSS.  Com. 
v.  537-8 ;  iv.  i.  434. 

-'  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  146  ;  xi.  3,  pp.  12-13,  171,  113.  For 
1340  see  Ashley's  Arteveldes,  126-7. 

3  Stubos  Const.  Hist.  iii.  484 — 488.     Hallam  Const.  Hist.  iii. 


i  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  5 

seventy-four  knights  of  the  shire ;  and  each  borough 
freely  decided  for  itself  what  the  qualifications  of  its 
members  should  be,  and  by  what  manner  of  election 
they  should  be  chosen,  at  a  time  when  for  country 
folk  all  such  matters  were  irrevocably  settled  by 
the  king's  law.  While  the  great  lords  with  their 
armed  bands  of  liveried  retainers  absolutely  ruled  the 
elections  in  the  shires,  in  spite  of  all  statutes  of  Par- 
liament, the  towns  asserted  their  freedom  to  elect 
without  fear  or  favour,  and  sent  to  the  House  of 
Commons  the  members  who  probably  at  that  time 
most  nearly  represented  the  "  people,"  that  is  so  far 
as  the  people  had  yet  been  drawn  into  a  conscious 
share  in  the  national  life. 

Four  hundred  years  later  the  very  remembrance 
of  this  free  and  vigorous  life  was  utterly  blotted 
out.  When  Commissioners  were  sent  in  1835  to 
enquire  into  the  position  of  the  English  boroughs, 
there  was  not  one  community  where  the  ancient 
traditions  still  lived.  There  were  Mayors,  and 
Town  Councils,  and  Burgesses ;  but  the  burgesses 
were  for  the  most  part  deprived  of  any  share  what- 
ever in  the  election  of  their  municipal  officers,  while 
these  officers  themselves  had  lost  all  the  nobler 
characteristics  of  their  former  authority.  Too  often 
the  very  limits  of  the  old  "  liberties  "  of  the  town 
were  forgotten  ;  or  if  the  ancient  landmarks  were 
remembered  at  all  it  was  only  because  they  defined 

36.  Gneist,  who  gives  different  figures,  considers  that  one  of 
the  greatest  dangers  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries 
was  the  irrational  and  meaningless  increase  of  town  representa- 
tion. (Constitution  Communale,  tr.  by  Hippert,  i.  333,  338  ;  ii.  9.) 


6  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

bounds  within  which  the  inhabitants  had  the  right 
of  voting  for  a  member  of  Parliament ;  and  in  cases 
where  the  old  boundaries  now  subsisted  for  no 
other  reason,  it  was  wholly  forgotten  that  they 
might  ever  have  had  some  other  origin.  In  other 
boroughs  where  the  right  of  voting  was  deter- 
mined in  another  way,  the  townspeople  had  simply 
lost  all  remembrance  of  the  ancient  limits  of  their 
territory ;  or  else,  guided  by  some  dim  recollection 
of  a  former  greatness  with  broader  jurisdiction  and 
wide-reaching  subject  estates,  the  corporation  still 
yearly  "  walked  the  bounds "  of  lands  over  which 
they  now  claimed  no  authority.  As  the  memory  of 
municipal  life  died  away  there  were  boroughs  where 
at  last  no  one  suspected  that  the  corporate  body 
had  ever  existed  for  any  larger  purpose  than  to 
choose  members  of  Parliament.  Knowing  no  other 
public  honour  or  privilege  and  called  to  no  other 
public  service,  the  freemen  saw  in  a  single  degraded 
political  function  the  sole  object  of  their  corporate 
constitution  ;  the  representation  of  the  people  was 
turned  by  them  into  "  a  property  and  a  commerce," 
and  this  one  privilege,  fed  on  corruption  and  private 
greed,  survived  the  decay  of  all  the  great  duties 
of  the  ancient  civic  life.1 

There  were  it  is  true  exceptions  to  this  common 
apathy,  and  towns  like  Lynn  might  still  maintain 
some  true  municipal  life,  while  others  like  Bristol  might 
yet  show  a  good  fighting  temper  which  counted  for 
much  in  the  political  struggles  of  the  early  nine- 

1  Rep.  of  Com.  on  Mun.  Corp.,  1835,  20,21  ;  29-34;  Papers  relat. 
ing  to  Parl.  Representation,  93,  94.  Vol.  ix.  No.  92.  ii. ;  31  x. 


«  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  7 

teenth  century.  But  the  ordinary  provincial  burghers 
had  lost,  or  forgotten,  or  been  robbed  of  the  heritage 
bequeathed  by  their  predecessors  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  With  the  loss  of  their  municipal  indepen- 
dence went  the  loss  of  their  political  authority ;  and 
the  four  hundred  or  so  of  members  whom  they  sent  to 
Parliament  took  a  very  different  position  there  from 
that  once  held  by  their  ancestors.  In  the  Middle  Ages 
the  knights  of  the  shire  were  the  mere  nominees  of 
the  wealthy  or  noble  class,  returned  to  Parliament 
by  the  power  of  the  lord's  retainers,  while  the 
burgesses  of  the  towns  preserved  a  braver  and 
freer  tradition.1  At  the  time  of  the  Keform  Bill, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  vast  majority  of  the  town 
members  sat  among  the  Commons  as  dependents 
and  servants  of  the  landed  aristocracy,  whose 
mission  it  was  to  make  the  will  of  their  patrons 
prevail,  and  who  in  their  corrupt  or  timid  subjec- 
tion simply  handed  back  to  the  wealthier  class  the 
supreme  political  power  which  artisans  and  shop- 
keepers and  "  mean  people  "  of  the  mediaeval  boroughs 
had  threatened  to  share  with  them. 

The  true  story  of  this  singular  growth  of  inde- 
pendence in  the  English  boroughs  and  of  its  no  less 
singular  decay  would  form  one  of  the  most  striking 

1  See  Paston  Letters,  i.  160-1,  337,  339-40;  ii.  78,  28,  31, 
35-36  ;  iii.  52-3.  Richard  the  Redeless,  passus  iv.  The  great 
people  occasionally  exercised  influence  in  towns ;  Hist.  MSS.  Com- 
v.  497 ;  ix.  138.  For  various  modes  of  voting  in  towns  see  Lynn, 
Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  3,  146-151  ;  Chichester,  Gross.  Gild  Mer- 
chant, ii.  48  ;  Reading,  Coates,  459  ;  Sandwich,  Boys,  402  ; 
Exeter,  Freeman,  152  ;  Worcester,  Eng.  Guilds,  373,  393 ; 
Bristol,  Hunt,  86  ;  Cinque  Ports,  Boy's  Sandwich,  774,  796. 


TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP, 

chapters  in  all  our  national  history.  But  the  materials 
for  such  a  story,  obscure,  fragmentary,  and  scattered 
as  they  are,  still  lie  hidden  away  in  municipal 
archives,  state  rolls,  and  judicial  records,  as  though 
the  matter  were  one  with  which  Englishmen  had 
nothing  to  do.  It  is  true  indeed  that  the  many 
ingenious  expedients  which  the  burghers  devised  to 
meet  the  peculiar  difficulties  of  a  past  age  would  ill 
serve  as  models  for  our  use  to-day,  nor  can  their 
success  or  failure  be  urged  on  either  side  of  our 
modern  controversies.  They  tell  us  nothing  of  the 
advantages  or  drawbacks  of  protection  in  our  own 
time,  or  of  the  uses  of  state  regulation  of  labour,  or  of 
the  advisability  of  trade  guilds.  We  cannot  revive 
their  courts  or  their  privileges,  any  more  than  we  can 
set  up  their  gallows  or  call  out  modern  citizens  to  dig 
a  moat  that  shall  be  their  defence  from  a  hostile 
world.  We  cannot  borrow  their  experience  and  live 
idly  on  the  wisdom  of  the  dead.  But  there  is 
no  more  striking  study  of  the  perpetual  adjust- 
ment and  contrivance  by  which  living  communi- 
ties adapt  themselves  to  the  changing  order  of  the 
world  than  the  study  of  our  provincial  boroughs  in 
the  Middle  Ages ;  and  Englishmen  who  now  stand 
in  the  forefront  of  the  world  for  their  conception  of 
freedom  and  their  political  capacity,  and  whose  con- 
tribution to  the  art  of  government  has  been  possibly 
the  most  significant  fact  of  these  last  centuries,  may 
well  look  back  from  that  great  place  to  the  burghers 
who  won  for  them  their  birthright,  and  watch  with  a 
quickened  interest  the  little  stage  of  the  mediaeval 
boroughs  where  their  forefathers  once  played  their 


i  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  9 

part,  trying  a  dozen  schemes  of  representation,  con- 
structing plans  of  government,  inventing  constitu- 
tions, with  a  living  energy  which  has  not  yet  spent  its 
force  after  traversing  a  score  of  generations. 

There  is  no  better  starting  point  for  the  study  of 
town  life  in  England  than  the  fifteenth  century  itself, 
when,  with  ages  of  restless  growth  lying  behind  them, 
and  with  their  societies  as  yet  untouched  by  the 
influences  of  the  Renascence  or  the  Reformation  or 
the  new  commercial  system,  the  boroughs  had 
reached  their  prosperous  maturity.  It  would  be 
vain  to  attempt  any  reconstruction  of  their  earlier 
history  without  having  first  stood,  as  it  were,  in  the 
very  midst  of  that  turbulent  society,  and  by  watch- 
ing the  infinite  variety  of  constitutional  develope- 
ment  learned  to  search  out  and  estimate  the  manifold 
forces  which  had  been  at  work  to  bring  about  so 
complex  a  result ;  and  no  study  of  their  later  history 
is  possible  without  an  understanding  of  the  pro- 
digious vitality  of  the  mediaeval  municipalities. 
There  were  the  workshops  in  which  the  political 
creed  of  England  was  fashioned,  where  the  notion  of 
a  free  commonwealth  with  the  three  estates  of  king, 
lords,  and  commons  holding  by  common  consent 
their  several  authority,  was  proved  and  tested  till  it 
became  the  mere  commonplace,  the  vulgar  property 
of  every  Englishman.  There  the  men  who  were 
ultimately  to  make  the  Reformation  were  schooled  in 
all  the  vexed  questions  between  church  and  state, 
and  in  the  practical  meaning  of  interference  in  civic 
matters  by  an  alien  power,  so  that  the  final  crisis  of 
religious  excitement  was  but  the  dramatic  declama- 


10  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

tion  on  a  grand  scale  of  lessons  diligently  repeated 
class  by  class  for  many  a  generation  beforehand. 
There,  too,  long  before  the  great  national  struggles  of 
later  centuries  between  England  and  the  continental 
powers  exalted  patriotism  to  its  highest  ardour,  men 
were  already  inspired  by  the  vision  of  the  English 
nation  holding  its  post  against  the  world,  and  by  a 
passionate  allegiance  to  its  great  destiny  ;  and  in 
every  market  and  harbour  the  love  of  country  was 
quickened  by  the  new  commerce  with  its  gigantic 
ambition  to  win  for  England  the  dominion  of  the 
seas,  its  federations  of  merchants  held  together  by 
the  desperate  struggle  for  supremacy,  and  its  hordes 
of  pirates  who  swept  the  ocean  with  the  wild  joy  of 
their  Norse  ancestors.  There  is  no  break  in  our 
history  when  the  old  world  merged  into  the  new,  for 
the  spirit  of  the  fifteenth  century  was  the  spirit  of 
the  sixteenth  century  as  completely  as  it  is  the  spirit 
of  to-day. 

The  towns  as  we  find  them  in  the  fifteenth 
century  were  the  outcome  of  centuries  of  preparation. 
It  was  by  a  very  slow  and  gradual  process  that 
England  was  transformed  from  a  purely  agricultural 
country,  with  its  scattered  villages  of  dependent 
tillers  of  the  soil,  into  the  England  we  know  to-day 
—a  land  of  industrial  town  communities,  where 
agricultural  interests  are  almost  forgotten  in  the 
summing  up  of  the  national  wealth.  Our  modern 
towns,  indeed,  can  almost  all  trace  back  their  history 
into  the  obscurity  of  a  very  distant  past ;  but  their 
record  as  we  find  it  in  Domesday,  or  under  the 
Norman  kings,  is  simply  that  of  little  country 


i  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  11 

hamlets,  where  a  few  agricultural  labourers  gathered 
in  their  poor  hovels,  tilling  by  turns  their  lord's  land 
and  their  own  small  holdings ;  or  of  somewhat  bigger 
villages  which  lay  at  the  branching  of  a  great  road, 
at  a  river  ford,  or  at  a  convenient  meeting-place  for 
fair  or  market,  and  thus  grew  into  some  little  con- 
sequence as  the  centres  of  a  small  local  trade ;  while 
along  the  coast  a  few  seaports  were  just  beginning  to 
draw  merchants  with  their  wares  to  a  land  that  had 
long  been  almost  forgotten  by  the  traders  of  the 
Continent.  It  was  not  till  the  twelfth  century l  that 
our  boroughs  began  to  have  an  independent  municipal 
history — from  the  time,  that  is,  when  the  growth  of 
the  wool  trade  under  Henry  the  First  gave  them 
a  new  commercial  life ;  and  the  organization  of  local 
government  under  Henry  the  Second  opened  for  them 
the  way  into  a  new  world  of  political  experiment 
and  speculation.2  From  this  time  all  went  well  with 
the  municipalities  for  three  hundred  years.  In  the 
course  of  the  thirteenth  century  the  great  majority  of 
towns  obtained  rights  of  self-government,  until  finally 
these  grants  came  to  an  end  simply  because  there 
were  no  unenfranchised  towns  left.3  Not  indeed 
that  the  flow  of  royal  charters  ceased,  for  burghers 
who  had  got  the  first  instalments  of  independence 

1  The  first  mention  of  burgesses  in  the  Empire  is  in  1066  at 
Huy,  in  the  bishopric  of  Liege.     Pirenne,  Dinant,  18. 

2  Dr.  Gross  gives  a  list  of   150  towns  which  had  gained  the 
right  of  having  a  merchant  gild — most  of  them  in  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries. 

3  Edward  the  First  in  the  thirty  years  of  his  rule  created  fifty- 
four  new  boroughs.    In  the  first  eighty  years  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury the  kings  only  issued  nine  charters  of  this  kind. 


12  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

were  constant  in  pressing  for  all  such  further  privi- 
leges as  could  magnify  their  authority  or  protect  their 
dignity ;  and  successive  generations  of  patriotic 
citizens  gathered  into  their  town  chests  under  the  safe 
keeping  of  half  a  dozen  locks  piles  of  precious  parch- 
ments, each  of  which  conferred  some  new  boon  or 
widened  the  borders  of  liberty.  Determined  as  it  was 
by  local  circumstances  the  struggle  for  independence 
was  carried  on  after  an  irregular  fashion,  first  in  one 
town,  then  in  another  ;  here  the  burghers  pressed 
forward  riotously,  and  there  loitered  indifferently  or 
stopped  discouraged  on  their  way.  Some  towns  were 
allowed  to  elect  their  mayor  before  1200,1  others  did 
not  win  the  right  till  three  or  four  centuries  later ; 
Bristol  was  made  a  shire  in  1375,  more  than  a 
hundred  years  before  Gloucester ;  and  in  the  fifteenth 
century  there  were  still  boroughs  which  had  to  gain 
their  first  charters,  or  else  to  exchange  narrow  and 
insufficient  rights  for  full  emancipation.  But  the 
forward  movement  never  ceased  ;  every  victory 
counted  for  liberty,  and  every  success  justified  faith 
and  inspired  new  zeal.  The  burghers  went  on 
filling  their  purses  on  the  one  hand,  and  drawing  up 
constitutions  for  their  towns  on  the  other,  till  in  the 
fifteenth  century  they  w^ere  in  fact  the  guardians  of 
English  wealth  and  the  arbiters  of  English  politics. 

At  first  indeed  municipal  life,  even  at  its  best, 
was  on  a  very  humble  scale.  The  biggest  boroughs 

1  London  was  not  apparently  before  other  cities  in  the  winning 
of  liberties.  (Round,  Geoffrey  de  Mandeville,  372.)  There  were 
reasons  enough  for  especial  caution  of  Henry  the  Second  in  the 
matter  of  London. 


I  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  13 

could  probably  in  1300  only  make  a  show  of  four 
or  five  thousand  inhabitants,  and  of  enfranchised 
burgesses  a  yet  smaller  number ; a  while  the  mud  or 
wood-framed  huts  with  gabled  roofs  of  thatch  and 
reeds  that  lined  their  narrow  lanes  sheltered  a 
people  who,  accepting  a  common  poverty,  traded 
in  little  more  than  the  mere  necessaries  of  life.2  It 
was  not  till  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century 
that  the  towns  as  they  entered  on  a  larger  industrial 
activity  began  to  free  themselves  from  the  indescrib- 
able squalor  and  misery  of  the  early  Middle  Ages  ;  but 
from  this  time  forward  we  begin  to  detect  signs  of 
stirring  prosperity,  at  first  under  the  guise  of  a  frugal 
well-being,  and  later  carrying  its  luxury  with  happy 
ostentation.  In  the  course  of  the  next  hundred  years 
we  see  trading  ports  such  as  Lynn,  Sandwich,  South- 
ampton, or  Bristol,  and  centres  of  inland  traffic  such 
as  Nottingham,  Leicester,  or  Heading,  and  manufac- 
turing towns  like  Norwich,  Worcester.  York,  heaping 
up  wealth,  doubling  and  trebling  their  yearly  ex- 
penditure, raising  the  salaries  of  their  officers, 
building  new  quarters,  adorning  their  public  offices 
and  churches,  lavishing  money  on  the  buying  of  new 
privileges  for  their  citizens,  or  on  the  extension  of 
their  trade.  And  while  the  bigger  boroughs  were 
thus  enjoying  their  harvest  of  blessing  and  fat  things, 
the  small  seaports  and  market  towns  also  gathered 

1  Gross,    Gild   Merchant,   i.    73,   note ;    Archseologia,  vii.   p. 
337-347  ;  Stubbs,  ii.  486. 

2  Burgage  rents  in  the  earliest  times  were  accounted  for  by 
the  officers  not  in  a  lump  sum  but  "  as  the  pennies  come  in." 
Rep.  on  Markets,  13. 


14  TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTQEY      CHAP 

in  their  share  of  the  general  good  fortune  by  which 
all  England  was  enriched. 

Take,  for  example,  the  town  of  Colchester,  where 
from  the  time  of  the  Conquest  a  population  of  about 
2,200  had  found  means  to  live,  but  in  those  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  had  never  added  to  their 
numbers.  Of  their  manner  of  life  we  can  tell  some- 
thing from  the  records  of  a  toll  levied  on  their  goods 
about  1300.  One  of  the  wealthiest  tradesmen  in 
the  town  was  a  butcher,  whose  valuation  came  to 
£7  155.  2d.  ;  while  the  stock-in-hand  of  his  brethren 
in  the  trade  consisted  mostly  of  brawn,  lard,  and  a 
few  salting  tubs,  though  one  had  two  carcases  of  oxen 
at  two  shillings  each,  and  another  had  meat  worth 
thirty  shillings  in  his  shop.  If  we  add  to  the  butchers 
thirteen  well-to-do  tanners,  and  fourteen  mercers 
who  sold  gloves,  belts,  leather,  silk  purses,  and  needle- 
cases,  besides  cloth  and  flannel,  and  one  even  girdles 
(which,  with  their  silver  ornaments,  were  costly 
articles),  we  have  exhausted  the  list  of  the  Colchester 
plutocrats.  In  the  course  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
however,  the  makers  of  cloth  came  to  settle  beside 
the  tanners  and  butchers.  Card-makers,  combers, 
clothiers,  weavers,  fullers,  and  dyers  gathered  to  the 
town,  and  spread  their  trade  out  into  the  neighbour- 
ing villages.  Wool-mongers  pushed  their  business, 
till  in  1373  the  bailiffs  made  the  under-croft  beneath 
the  old  Moot  Hall  into  a  Wool  Hall  for  the  con- 
venience of  dealers,  and  added  a  fine  porch  with  a 
vault  overhanging  the  entrance  to  the  Moot  Hall, 
and  some  shops  with  solars  over  them.  Before  the 
century  had  closed  the  population  had  more  than 


I  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  15 

doubled.  The  poor  houses  that  once  lined  the  streets 
were  swept  away,  and  wealthy  men  built  shops  in 
the  new  style  with  chambers  over  them  fronting  the 
street,  and  let  them  to  shopkeeping  tenants.1 

In  the  little  trading  town  of  Bridport  we  have  the 
same  story.  In  1319  Bridport,  with  its  one  hundred 
and  eighty  burgesses,  could  not  at  a  "  view  of  arms," 
or  muster  of  fighting  men,  produce  a  single  burgher 
who  bore  bow  and  arrows,  and  sent  out  its  motley 
regiment  equipped  with  the  universal  knife  or  dagger, 
or,  as  it  might  chance,  with  staves,  hatchets,  pole-axes, 
forks,  or  spears,  while  an  aristocrat  or  two  actually 
bore  a  sword.  Only  sixty-seven  burgesses  out  of  the 
one  hundred  and  eighty  paid  taxes,  and  the  general 
poverty  seems  to  have  been  extreme.  The  richest 
man  had  one  cow,  two  hogs,  two  brass  platters,  a  few 
hides,  and  a  little  furniture — the  whole  worth  £4  8s. ; 
and  one  of  the  most  respectable  innkeepers  of  the 
place  owned  two  hogs,  two  beds,  two  tablecloths,  two 
hand  napkins,  a  horse,  a  brass  pot,  a  platter,  a  few 
wooden  vessels,  and  some  malt.2  In  1323  things 
were  a  trifle  better,  for  eighty  persons  were  then 
taxed,  the  property  of  some  of  them  being  valued 
only  at  six  shillings,  and  this  under  a  system  in 
which  the  whole  of  each  man's  possessions  was  exactly 
reckoned  up — his  cards,  yarn,  shoes,  the  girths  he 
was  making  or  trying  to  sell,  even  his  store  of 
oatmeal.  A  century  later,  however,  we  find  a  new 
Bridport.  Traders  from  Bristol  had  settled  in  its 
streets,  and  men  of  Holland  and  foreign  merchant? 

1  Cutt's  Colchester,  111-117,  126-7. 

-  Two  other  inn-keepers  had  much  the  same  stock-in-trade. 


10  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUEY       CHAP. 

and  craftsmen ;  and  the  townsfolk  had  grown  pros- 
perous and  began  to  bind  themselves  together  in 
fraternities — the  brotherhood  of  S.  Nicholas,  the 
brotherhood  of  S.  Mary  and  S.  James,  the  brother- 
hood of  the  Two  Torches,  a  brotherhood  of  the  Light 
of  the  Holy  Cross  in  S.  Andrew's,  and  another  in 
S.  Mary's,  and  the  brotherhood  of  the  Torches  in  the 
Church  of  the  Blessed  Mary — apparently  the  offspring 
of  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  Toll 
Hall  was  repaired,  the  houses  in  the  town  set  in 
order,  and  a  new  causeway  made.  The  Guild  Hall 
got  its  clock  ;  the  church  was  rebuilt  and  fitted  up 
with  organs,  and  sittings  in  it  were  let  out  to  the 
wealthy  burghers.  When,  finally,  a  "  view  of  arms  " 
was  again  held  in  the  town  in  1458,  there  was  not  a 
single  name  left  of  those  who  had  appeared  in  the 
list  of  1319.  But  these  new  traders  came  bravely 
set  out  with  bows  and  arrows,  as  well  as  with  daggers, 
bills,  pole-axes,  or  spears,  or  marching  proudly  with 
their  mails,  jacks,  salets,  and  "  white  harness  with  a 
basenet."  The  Bridport  standard  had  changed,  and 
one  man  who  came  carrying  quite  an  armoury — a 
gun,  besides  a  bow,  twelve  arrows,  a  sword,  and  a 
buckler — was  ordered  to  have  twelve  more  arrows  at 
the  next  muster. ] 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Corn.  vi.  part  i.  491-2,  478,  489.  In  Reading 
at  the  muster  roll  of  1311  there  appeared  eight  men  armed  with 
sword,  bow,  arrows,  and  knife  ;  thirty-three  with  bows,  arrows, 
and  knives  ;  and  over  two  hundred  and  thirty-five  (besides  some 
names  lost  at  the  foot  of  the  roll)  with  hatchets  and  knives.  In 
1371  the  town  was  able  to  raise  a  body  of  archers  for  service 
abroad  ;  and  under  Edward  the  Sixth  it  sent  fifty  soldiers  armed 
with  bills,  swords,  daggers,  bows,  and  arrows,  and  paid  each 


i  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  17 

Even  towns  which  like  Rye  had  known  all  the 
calamities  of  war  were  only  waiting  for  a  moment 
of  peace  to  win  their  share  of  the  common  prosperity. 
Burned  by  the  French  in  1377,  burned  and  laid 
desolate  again  in  1448,  Rye  long  remained  on  -the 
level  of  poverty  common  in  the  Middle  Ages.  In 
1414  it  sheltered  a  mere  handful  of  struggling 
people — twenty-one  poor  householders  in  Nesse  Ward, 
twenty-eight  in  Water  Melle  Ward,  and  a  somewhat 
larger  number  in  Market  Ward  equally  poor ;  within 
its  walls,  in  fact,  there  was  but  one  man — the  lord 
of  the  manor — who  wras  assessed  at  so  great  a  sum  as 
65.  8t/. ,  though  there  was  the  beginning  of  a  fashion- 
able suburb  in  the  Ward  without  the  Gate,  where  the 
Mayor  lived  with  some  dozen  other  well-to-do  house- 
holders, two  of  whom  besides  the  Mayor  were  assessed 
at  the  aristocratic  figure  of  65.  Sd.  By  the  end  of 
the  century,  however,  Rye  fishermen  were  known  on 
distant  seas  and  Rye  traders  in  the  fairs  at  home  and 
abroad.  London  merchants  had  bought  property  in  the 
thriving  town,  and  new  quarters  had  sprung  up  with 
names  borrowed  from  the  capital — Paternoster  Ward 
and  Bucklersbury  Ward.  In  1493  five  of  the 
burghers  were  assessed  as  owning  £400  each,  and 
the  total  value  of  the  property  possessed  by  the 
inhabitants  was  £6,303.* 

Evidence  of  accumulating  wealth  indeed  gathers 
on  every  side.  The  labour  and  enterprise  which  in 
earlier  centuries  had  covered  England  with  castles 


soldier  forty  pence  "  for  the  King's  affairs  into  Boulogne."     Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  xi.  7,  171,  182.  l  Ibid.  v.  497. 

VOL.  I  C 


18  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUKY       CHAP. 

and  cathedrals  and  monasteries  was  now  absorbed 
in  the  work  of  covering  it  with  new  towns.  A 
journey  through  any  part  of  the  country  to-day  is 
enough  to  show  us  how  ruthlessly  the  men  of  the 
fifteenth  century  swept  away  the  parish  churches- 
which  their  fathers  had  built  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  to  replace  them  with  the  big  bare  fabrics 
where  size  and  ostentation  too  often  did  service  for 
beauty,  and  in  the  building  of  which  prosperous- 
burghers  gave  more  conspicuous  proof  of  wealth  and 
lavish  generosity  than  of  taste  and  feeling.  In 
Canterbury  and  Worcester  and  Nottingham  and 
Bristol  and  a  host  of  other  towns  we  may  still  admire 
the  new  houses  that  were  being  raised  for  the  traders, 
with  their  picturesque  outlines  and  fine  carved  work. 
Waste  places  in  the  boroughs  were  covered  with 
buildings  and  formed  into  new  wards.  On  every 
side  corporations  instinct  with  municipal  pride 
built  Common  Halls,  set  up  stately  crosses  in  the 
market-place  such  as  we  still  see  at  Winchester  or 
Marlborough,  paved  the  streets,1  or  provided  new 

1  Act  of  Parliament  for  paving  Gloucester,  1455  ;  Fosbrooke's 
Gloucestershire,!.  157.  For  Exeter  in  1466;  Freeman's  Exeter, 
91.  For  Canterbury  in  1474,  because  the  "evil  report"  carried 
away  by  pilgrims  "  would  be  stopped  if  the  roads  were  properly 
pitched  with  boulders  and  Folkestone  stone  "  ;  Hist.  MSS.  Com. 
ix.  168,  144,  174.  For  Southampton  in  1477,  after  a  century  of 
vain  attempts  to  pave  the  streets;  Davies,  119,  120;  in  1384 
a  tax  was  levied  for  pavage ;  in  1441  accounts  were  rendered 
of  paving  stones  provided ;  payments  were  made  in  1457  to  a 
London  paviour.  By  the  Act  each  citizen  was  ordered  to  pave 
before  his  own  door  as  far  as  the  middle  of  the  street  since 
"  the  town  was  full  feebly  paved  and  full  perilous  and  jeopardous 
to  ride  or  go  therein,  and  in  especial  in  the  High  Street,"  so  that 


i  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  19 

water-supply  for  the  growing  population.1  If  we 
count  up  the  new  gates,  and  quays,  and  bridges,  and 
wharves,  and  harbours,  and  sluices,  and  aqueducts, 
and  markets  of  which  the  town  records  furnish 
accounts,  we  are  filled  with  amazement  at  an  activity 
which  was  really  stupendous.  Public  duty  and 
private  enterprise  went  hand  in  hand.  Sometimes 
the  whole  commonalty  was  called  out  to  help  at 
the  church-building,  or  the  digging  of  a  new  harbour ; 
sometimes  the  charity  once  given  to  religious  uses 
was  turned  into  the  channel  of  civic  patriotism,  and 
good  citizens  left  money  to  found  hospitals  and 
almshouses  and  schools,  to  pave  the  streets,  to  pay 
the  tolls  of  their  town,  to  fee  lawyers  to  defend  its 
privileges,  or  buy  a  charter  to  protect  its  rights  from 
invasion.  Thus  it  was  two  traders  of  Canterbury 
who  built  in  1400  the  first  private  bridge  over  the 
river;  and  in  1485  a  mercer  from  London,  William 

"  strangers  thither  resorting  have  been  oftentimes  greatly  hurt 
and  in  peril  of  their  lives."  For  Bristol  in  1491  when 
the  whole  town  seems  to  have  been  new  paved.  Ricart,  47-48. 

1  To  take  a  single  instance,  in  1421  the  water-supply  of 
Southampton  was  undertaken  by  the  council,  and  new  leaden 
pipes  provided  by  the  grant  of  a  burgess  who  had  thus  bequeathed 
his  money  "  for  the  good  of  his  soul."  An  aqueduct  was  made 
at  considerable  expense  in  1428;  261  days'  work  at  it  was  paid 
at  from  4c£.  to  6d.  a  day;  over  £12  more  was  spent  on  an  iron 
grating  for  it,  and  27s.  2d.  given  to  the  plumber  who  fixed  it ; 
great  stones  from  Wathe  called  "  scaplyd  stonys  "  were  carried, 
with  loads  of  chalk,  quicklime,  pitch,  rosin,  solder,  wax,  and 
wood.  In  1490  a  new  well  was  made  with  a  "  watering-place 
for  horse  and  a  washing-place  for  women."  Davies,  115,  117  ; 
Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  3,  138-40.  In  many  towns  wells  were 
repaired,  enclosed  with  a  wall  and  covered  with  a  roof  and  put 
under  the  care  of  wardens. 

C   2 


20  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

Pratt,  constructed  at  his  own  expense  the  first  main 
drain  under  the  Old  Street  to  carry  off  the  rain-water 
into  the  river.1  In  Birmingham  the  whole  community 
formed  itself  into  a  "  guild  and  lasting  brotherhood  "  for 
the  doing  of  works  of  charity,  and  chiefly  it  would 
seem  for  the  repairing  of  two  great  stone  bridges  and 
divers  foul  and  dangerous  ways  on  the  high  road  to 
Wales — a  work  which  the  Corporation  was  too  poor 
to  undertake.2 

Nor  was  this  growth  in  wealth  the  only,  or  indeed 
the  most  striking  part  of  the  town's  history  during 
these  three  centuries  from  the  time  of  Henry  the 
Second  to  the  time  of  Henry  the  Seventh.  Trade 
is  pretty  much  the  same  wherever  it  exists  at  all,  and 
from  its  narrow  dominion  much  of  human  energy  will 
always  make  a  way  to  escape.  When  Englishmen 
had  spent  a  measure  of  their  force  in  creating  a 
nation  of  shopkeepers,  there  was  still  enough  of 
buoyant  and  exuberant  strength  left  to  elaborate 
an  art  of  government  which  has  affected  the  history 
of  the  world ;  and  the  truly  characteristic  part 
of  the  mediaeval  story  is  that  which  enables  us  to 
measure  the  political  genius  with  which  the  fore- 
runners of  our  modern  democracy  shaped  schemes 
of  administration  for  the  societies  they  had  created  of 
free  workers.  There  was  much  to  be  done  in  the 
new  ordering  of  life.3  Already  in  the  twelfth 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  137,  145.      See  Paston,  i.  434  ;    Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  xi.  7,  169;  x.  4,  529-30. 

2  English  Guilds,  241,  249. 

3  For  the  contrast  in  this  respect  between  the  shire  and  the 
borough  see  Round's  Geoffrey  de  Mandeville,  356-7. 


i  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  21 

century  a  new  force  had  declared  itself  when  in  France 
the  middle  and  lower  classes  for  the  first  time  found 
a  voice  in  literature.  From  that  time  onwards  poets 
of  the  people  and  teachers  of  socialism,  writing  in  the 
vulgar  tongue  for  common  folk,  proposed  startling 
questions  and  boldly  pressed  home  their  conclusions. 
Nothing  was  safe  from  their  criticism ;  as  they  dis- 
cussed the  original  rights  of  men,  the  "  social  contract " 
between  the  people  and  their  lords,  the  tyranny  of 
nobles,  or  the  rights  of  peasants,1  these  new  thinkers 
among  the  people  gave  warning  of  growing  energies 
too  big  and  passionate  to  live  at  ease  in  the  narrow 
bondage  of  mediaeval  custom  and  tradition.  The 
inevitable  changes  however  came  slowly,  and  those  who 
lived  in  the  midst  of  the  movement  were  themselves 
unconscious  of  the  real  transformation  that  was  going 
on.  Even  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century  the 
writer  of  Piers  Ploughman,  when  he  paints  for  us 
the  picture  of  the  feudal  world  as  it  then  was,  has  no 
dream  that  its  bondage  can  ever  be  broken,  that  there 
is  any  escape  out  of  the  prison-house  of  mediaeval 
society.  For  the  first  time  we  there  see  England, 
not  as  it  appeared  to  historians  and  satirists  of  the 
court  or  the  monastery,  but  as  it  looked  to  one 
standing  in  the  very  midst  of  that  vast  "  field  full  of 
folk  from  end  to  other"-— to  the  poet  who  walked 
among  the  people  with  his  heart  full  of  charity  and 
pity,  who  by  day  mixed  with  the  crowd  at  the  fair, 
or  watched  the  bargainings  in  the  market-place^  or 
travelled  along  country  by-ways  and  entered  the 

1  Luchaire,  Communes  Francises,  22-25.     See  Piers  Plough- 
man, passus  i.  139-146 ;  ii.  90-99  ;  ix.  19-76  ;  x.  223-227. 


22  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

hovels  of  the  poor,  and  at  night  sat  in  the  ale-house 
among  beggars  and  mendicant  friars.  But  while  he 
shows  us  all  the  trouble  and  confusion  of  that  tumul- 
tuous crowd,  the  social  order  remains  to  him  simple 
and  unchangeable — fixed,  in  his  belief,  as  firmly  as 
the  decrees  of  God  and  nature  could  establish  it. 
He  could  only  repeat  the  old  time-honoured  counsels 
of  work  and  obedience  as  the  final  remedy  for  all 
social  ills  :  "  Counsel  not  the  commons  the  King  to 
displease."  But  it  was  more  than  possible  that  work 
and  obedience  might  still  leave,  as  it  had  left  before, 
life  empty  of  all  but  misery.  Then  the  last  solace 
lay  in  resignation. 

"  Yea,  quoth  Patience,  and  hente  out  of  his  poke 
A  piece  of  the  Pater  Noster  and  proffered  to  us  all. 
And  I  listened  and  looked  what  livelihood  it  were ; 
Then  was  it  '  Fiat  voluntas  tua '  that  should  find  us  all. 
'  Have,    Actyf,'     quoth    Patience,    '  and   eat    this   when    thee 

hungreth 

Or  when  thou  clomsest  for  cold  or  clyngest  for  drought ; 
And  shall  never  gyves  thee  grieve  nor  great  lord's  wrath, 
Prison  nor  other  pain  for — patientes  vincunt."  l 

Such  was  Langland's  final  solution  for  the  disorders 
of  his  time.  But  the  English  were  not  a  patient 
people,  and  the  problem  of  the  reorganization  of 
society  had  become  a  very  serious  one  towards  the 
close  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  was  perhaps  more 
urgent  to  men's  fears  and  consciences  in  the  fifteenth 
century  than  it  had  ever  been  before,  or  was 
to  be  again  till  our  own  day.  It  was  a  press- 

1   Piers  Ploughman,  passus  xvi.  248-255. 


I  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  23 

ing  question  for  humble  folk,  for  shopkeepers  and 
traders  and  artisans  and  journeymen  who  in  the 
absence  of  privilege  were  driven  to  think  of  liberty ; 
and  in  the  crowded  lanes,  the  mean  workshops,  the 
disorderly  market-place,  the  little  thatched  Common 
Hall  of  the  mediaeval  town,  great  principles  of  freedom 
found  their  early  home,  and  fought  their  way  to 
perfection  and  supremacy.  It  was  not  enough  that 
the  burghers  should  create  societies  of  free  men — 
"gentlemen"  as  Piers  Ploughman  would  have 
said,1  to  whom  the  great  difference  that  dis- 
tinguished between  man  and  man  was  not  wealth  or 
poverty,  labour  or  ease,  but  freedom  or  bondage.  This 
was  the  easier  part  of  their  task,  and  was  practically 
finished  early  in  their  history.  It  was  a  longer  and  more 
difficult  business  to  discover  how  the  art  of  government 
'should  be  actually  practised  in  these  communities, 
and  to  define  the  principles  of  their  political  existence. 
But  in  these  matters  also  the  burghers  became  the 
pioneers  of  our  liberties,  and  their  political  methods 
have  been  handed  down  as  part  of  the  heritage  of 

1  "  The  Jews  that  were  gentlemen,  Jesus  they  despised, 
Both  his  lore  and  his  law,  now  are  they  low  churls, 
As  wide  as  the  world  is  woneth  (dwelleth)  there  none 
But  under  tribute  and  tallage  as  tikes  and  churls. 
And  those  that  become  Christian  by  counsel  of  the  Baptist 
Are  franklins  and  free  .... 
And  gentlemen  with  Jesus." 

(Piers  Ploughman,  ed.  by  W.  Skeat  for  Early  English  Text 
Society,  part  iii.;  pass.  xxii.  34.)  I  have  ventured  to  give  quota- 
tions from  mediaeval  writers  in  modern  spelling,  as  I  am  here 
concerned  neither  with  philology  nor  the  history  of  literature  : 
and  there  are  many  to  whom  the  old  methods  of  spelling  only 
serve  to  obscure  the  sense. 


24  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP, 

the  whole  people.  As  by  degrees  the  multitude 
of  privileges  promised  and  confirmed  left  the  im- 
portant towns  with  no  more  demands  to  make,  they 
turned  their  energies  to  the  work  of  framing  those 
elaborate  and  highly  artificial  constitutions  which 
mark  the  highest  point  to  which  their  proud  and 
self-sufficient  independence  had  attained.  Instead  of 
tamely  accepting  the  pattern  or  the  theory  of  its 
neighbours,  every  town  was  making  its  own  peculiar 
experiment  in  the  art  of  governing,  with  a  vivacity 
and  a  restless  ingenuity  proper  to  the  culminating 
moment  of  their  activity. 

Meanwhile  by  a  happy  coincidence  the  boroughs 
were  called  to  take  part  in  the  great  movement  by 
which  the  House  of  Commons  was  created,  at  a  time 
when  the  discipline  and  experience  of  local  self- 
government  had  prepared  them  to  exercise  a  very  real 
influence  in  the  moulding  of  the  English  constitution 
into  its  present  form.  Having  for  the  most  part 
secured  their  fundamental  liberties  just  before  Simon 
de  Montfort  in  1265  summoned  the  middle  class  to 
take  their  share  in  the  work  of  Parliament,  and  having 
steadily  strengthened  their  position  during  all  the 
thirty  years  of  changing  counsels  and  tentative  ex- 
periments which  followed,  they  saw  the  representa- 
tion of  the  boroughs  definitely  established  in  1295 — 
the  very  year  after  county  representation  had  been  at 
last  perfectly  acknowledged.1  If  for  a  time  they  played 
apparently  a  small  part  in  political  battles,  if  the 
separate  action  of  the  borough  members  is  scarcely 
mentioned,2  the  fact  still  remains  that  throughout  the 

1  Stubbs,  ii.  137-144,  239-244.  2  ibid.  ii.  560,  671. 


i  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  25 

century  during  which  the  House  of  Commons  was  being- 
fashioned  l  members  sent  from  these  free  self-governing 
communities  formed  almost  two-thirds  of  that  House. 
Edward  the  First  sent  Parliamentary  writs  to  166 
towns,  and  in  the  Parliament  of  1399,  176  repre- 
sentatives of  boroughs  sat  by  the  seventy-four 
knights  of  the  shire.2  Silent  and  acquiescent  as 
they  were  for  a  while,  there  are  significant  in- 
stances to  show  the  steady  growth  of  their  im- 
portance, and  the  way  in  which  statesmen  had 
begun  to  appreciate  the  new  force  with  which  govern- 
ments had  henceforth  to  reckon.3  By  the  close  of  the 
fourteenth  century  their  influence  was  marked  ;  and  it 
was  doubtless  through  its  vigorous  burghers  that  the 

1  Stubbs,  ii.  332-4. 

2  Ibid.  ii.  257;  iii.  16. 

8  The  former  devices  for  illegal  taxation  on  the  King's  part 
broke  down  when  the  commons  looked  so  sharply  after  these 
matters  that  no  attempt  at  unauthorised  taxation  of  merchandise 
was  made  after  the  accession  of  Richard  the  Second.  Stubbs,  ii. 
574-578.  How  completely  the  relation  of  King  and  commons 
had  been  reasoned  out  by  the  people  we  see  in  Langland's 
writings. 

"  Then  came  there  a  King,  and  '  by  his  crown,'  said, 
'  I  am  a  king  with  crown  the  commons  to  rule, 
And  holy  Church  and  clergy  from  cursed  men  to  defend. 
And  if  me  lacketh  to  live  by,  the  law  wills  that  I  take 
There  I  may  have  it  hastelokest;  (quickest)  for  I  am  head  of  law, 
And  ye  be  both  members,  and  I  above  all.' 

'  On  condition,'  quoth  conscience,  '  that  thou  conne  defend 
And  rule  thy  realm  in  reason  right  well,  and  in  truth ; 
Then,  that  thou  have  thine  asking  as  the  law  asketh ; 
Omnia  sunt  tua  ad  defendendum,  sed  non  ad  dej/rekendendum,'  " 
(Piers  Ploughman,  passus  xxii.  467-472,  478-481.) 


26  TOWX  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

House  of  Commons  in  the  early  part  of  the  fifteenth 
century  laid  hold  of  powers  which  it  had  never 
had  before,  nor  was  to  have  again  for  two  hundred 
years.1  In  the  list  of  petitions  and  statutes  through- 
out the  century  in  which  their  influence  on  legislation 
was  plainly  dominant,  we  may  look  for  the  true 
beginning  of  democratic  government  in  England.2 
Indeed  at  a  yet  earlier  time,  when  the  House  of 
Commons  was  not  seventy  years  old,  its  power  had 
been  already  measured  and  men's  imaginations 
kindled  by  its  mighty  destiny.  If  supreme  over  all 
the  King  kept  his  state  at  Westminster, 

"  him  lord  antecedent, 

Both  their  head  and  their  King,  holding  with  no  party, 
But  stand  as  a  stake  that  sticketh  in  a  mire 
Between  two  lands  for  a  true  mark  "  ; 

if  his  power  was  absolute,  and  he  could 

"  claim  the  commons  at  his  will 
To  follow  him,  to  find  him,  and  to  fetch  at  them  his  counsel,"  3 

yet  even  then  Conscience  warned  the  sovereign  that  to 
frame  a  righteous  government  "without  the  commons' 
help  it  is  full  hard,  by  my  head "  ;  4  and  Reason 

"  counselled  the  King  his  commons  to  love, 
For  the  commons  is  the  King's  treasure."  5 


1   Stubbs,  iii.  77  :  Rogers,  Agric.  and  Prices,  iv.  viii. 
-  See  the  description  of  a  session  of  Parliament  in  Richard  the 
Redeless,  passus  iii.  A.D.  1399. 

3  Piers  Ploughman,  passus  iv.  376,  &c. 

4  Ibid,  passus  v.  176. 

5  Ibid,  passus  vi.  181.  M.  Jusserand  (Epopee  Mystique  du  Moyen 
Age,  101-118),  justly   points  out  what  a  typical   representative 


I  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  27 

The  whole  part  however  played  by  the  towns  in 
national  politics,  the  degree  of  influence  they  exer- 
cised, in  what  ways  it  differed  from  that  of  the  aristo- 
cratic class,  how  it  affected  matters  of  administration, 
finance,  foreign  policy,  commercial  laws,  the  strength 
of  the  monarchy,  and  the  forms  of  the  constitution — 
all  these  questions  have  still  to  be  investigated.  What 
is  perfectly  clear  is  that  wise  rulers  in  those  days  saw 
the  tremendous  change  that  was  taking  place  in  the 
balance  of  forces  in  the  State,  as  even  the  most  foolish 
among  them  felt  that  the  power  of  the  purse  at  least 
was  passing  from  the  country  magnates  to  the  town 
merchants  ; l  and  they  gave  expression  to  their  convic- 
tions by  a  change  in  the  whole  character  of  their  policy. 
To  kings  and  statesmen  the  friendship  of  the  burghers 
even  in  times  of  comparative  quiet  was  daily  becom- 
ing a  matter  of  greater  consequence  to  be  bought  at 
their  own  price.  It  was  no  longer  the  nobles  whom 
they  sought  to  bribe  to  their  interest,  but  the  towns  ; 
and  as  gifts  and  pensions  to  Court  favourites  declined, 
courtesies  and  gracious  remissions  of  rent  were  lavished 
on  the  boroughs.2  From  this  time,  even  when  the 

of  common  opinion  Langland  was.  Compare  the  popular  manifesto 
of  1450.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  viii.  267.)  "  They  say  the  King  should 
live  upon  his  commons,  and  that  their  bodies  and  goods  are  his ; 
the  contrary  is  true,  for  then  needed  him  never  to  set  Parliament 
and  to  ask  good  of  them." 

1  The  burden  of  taxation  was  gradually  being  transferred  from 
one  class  to  another  as  subsidies  on  moveables,  and  customs  on 
import  and  export  were  found  more  productive  and  more  easily 
managed.  Stubbs,  ii.  570. 

-  Reductions  of  rent  are  too  numerous  to  give ;  they  occurred 
everywhere,  and  were  sometimes  apparently  bought  at  a  consider- 
able price.  (See  Round's  Geoffrey  de  Mandeville,  366.)  Loans 


28  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

towns  had  fallen  to  their  lowest  estate,  their  heritage 
of  power  was  never  wholly  lost,  and  through  their 
later  humiliation  and  corruption  we  may  still  discover 
the  evidence  of  their  political  consequence,  since  the 
measure  of  their  influence  was  in  fact  the  price  set 
on  their  obedience. 

If  such  a  tale  of  long  centuries  of  national  growth 
ending  in  a  satisfied  maturity  carries  its  suggestion  of 
dull  monotony,  we  need  only  turn  to  the  history  of 
towns  in  other  times  and  places  to  discover  that  in  this 
very  monotony  is  hidden  a  real  element  of  singularity. 

from  the  towns  seem  to  have  been  voluntary.  In  1435  the 
Sandwich  commonalty  refused  to  lend  money  to  the  King ;  and 
further  excused  themselves  from  sending  him  soldiers  for  the 
defence  of  Calais,  "  having  all  the  men  they  can  spare  already 
employed  in  the  service  of  the  Duke  of  York."  (Boys,  672.)  A 
grant  to  the  King  was  again  refused  in  1486.  (Ibid.  678.)  The 
Norwich  citizens  got  into  trouble  for  instituting  a  suit  to  have 
their  loan  returned  (Blomefield,  iii.  147,  152).  In  1424  Lynn 
lent  400  marks,  and  in  1428  the  council  agreed  that  burgesses  of 
parliament  should  receive  from  executors  of  the  late  king  a  hundred 
pounds  for  a  pledged  circlet  of  gold  because  they  could  not  get  more 
(Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  3,  161).  In  1491  the  king  was  at 
Bristol,  where  he  had  a  benevolence  of  £1,800  (Ricart,  47-48). 
At  the  coming  of  Richard  the  Third  in  1484,  York,  to  gain  a 
reduction  of  the  fee-ferm,  agreed  to  give  him  100  marks  in  a  cup 
of  gold,  and  to  the  queen  £100  in  a  dish.  A  list  is  given  of  the 
citizens  who  subscribed — the  mayor  giving  £20,  the  recorder  £100, 
and  so  on.  The  whole  sum  subscribed  was  £437  (Davis'  York, 
167-9,  174).  It  would  be  quite  impossible  to  mention  all  the 
loans,  but  the  instance  of  Canterbury  is  curious  as  the  first  fore- 
shadowing of  the  national  debt.  In  1438  £40  was  lent  to  the 
king,  and  in  1443  £50 ;  in  these  cases  private  individuals 
advanced  the  money  in  various  amounts  according  to  their  taste 
for  speculation,  and  probably  got  certificates  promising  interest 
and  redemption  at  par  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  part  1,  139). 


I  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  29 

The  most  striking  contrast  lies  perhaps  close  at  hand, 
in  the  brilliant  and  dramatic  story  of  the  communes 
in  France — the  shortest  lived  of  all  the  feudal  inde- 
pendent lordships  in  Europe.1  Of  earlier  origin 
than  the  English,  their  history  goes  back  to  the 
first  part  of  the  twelfth  century,  fifty  years  before 
the  movement  had  effectively  begun  in  England ; 
and  the  story  of  their  liberties  is,  taken  all  together, 
but  a  brief  tale  of  some  two  hundred  years,  from 
1130  to  1330.  Their  progress  was  rapid  and  their 
decay  as  swift.  Indeed  decline  had  already  set  in 
by  1223,  at  the  very  time  when  Norwich,  Notting- 
ham, and  a  number  of  the  greater  English  towns 
were  just  receiving  for  the  first  time  powers  of 
choosing  their  own  rulers  and  administering  their  own 
justice.  In  1280  their  condition  was  almost  hopeless,2 
and  half  a  century  later  the  life  of  the  free  com- 
munities was  over  and  their  liberties  utterly 
extinguished,  saving  always  the  liberty  to  carry  on 
trade. 

And  yet  we  can  only  wonder  that  the  attempt 
lasted  for  two  hundred  years,  set  as  they  were  amid 
difficulties  wholly  unknown  to  English  burghers,  or 
with  the  ghosts  or  dim  reflections  of  which  these  at 
the  worst  had  only  to  contend  in  a  kind  of  phantom 
fight.  What  were  the  far-off  echoes  of  foreign  con- 
quest or  defeat  heard  on  our  side  of  the  water,  or 
the  report  of  an  occasional  local  rising,  com- 
pared to  the  devastating  wars  that  swept  the  plains 
of  France,  and  amid  the  miseries  of  which  the  com- 
munes were  struggling  into  life  ?  The  necessities  of 

1  Luchaire,  288-D.  2  Luchaire,  64,  137. 


30  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

war  proved  fatal  to  local  liberty,    and  that  in  more 
ways  than  one.     If  warring  kings  and  lords  created 
independent   communities   for    their    own  purposes, 
with   the    sole    idea     of     forming    fortified   centres 
capable  of  self-defence,  such  communes  could  hardly 
prove  strongholds  of  freedom,   and  the  self-govern- 
ment  of    the    people   soon   fell   in   fact   before    the 
requirements  of  military  discipline.     Sometimes  the 
death  of  freedom  was  brought  about  by  more  violent 
methods ;    and  the  trembling  inhabitants  who  made 
their  way  back  from  the  woods  to  their  ruined  homes 
after  a  town  had  been    sacked  and  burned  by  the 
enemy,  would  pray  to  be   disenfranchised  that  they 
might  thus  be  delivered  from  the  burdens  and  dues  of  a 
commune  which  they  were  no  longer  able  to  maintain. 
Abroad  moreover  feudalism    retained    the  authority 
which  had  been  torn  from  it  here  by  Norman  kings,  and 
was  yet  more  dangerous  to  the  burghers  than  war  itself. 
Against  the  might  of  their  feudal  lord,  king  or  noble 
or  ecclesiastic,  they  could  make  in  the  long  run  but  a 
sorry  fight,  and  perhaps  after  a  century  of  desperate 
struggle  for  emancipation  in  which  the  peasants  saw 
their  brethren  slain  in  thousands,  their  farms  devas- 
tated,  their  wealth  torn  from  them,  their  emigrants 
driven  back  starving  to  plundered  homesteads,  the 
outcome  of  all  their  misery  was  finally  to  gain  a  few 
trading  privileges  by  consenting  to  a  charter  which 
once  more  laid  them  bound  at  the  feet  of  their  master. 
Too  often  the  lord  avoided  open  violence  by  calling 
political  craft  to  his  aid,  and  devised  for  his  burghers 
some  form  of  charter  which  while  it  admirably  suited 
his  own  purposes  robbed  the   communal  government 


I  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  31 

of  any  true  democratic  element  and  made  the  name  of 
liberty  a  mockery.  As  for  the  vast  number  of  towns 
big  and  little  under  ecclesiastical  dominion,  they  con- 
tended in  vain  against  princes  of  the  Church  whose 
mighty  state  was  measured  on  the  grand  scale  of  the 
Continent — princes  with  the  Pope  always  in  the  back- 
ground, ready  at  their  complaint  to  fulminate  the  decree 
of  excommunication  which  left  all  the  burghers'  goods 
at  the  mercy  of  their  lord.  Whether  the  prelate  sought 
to  annihilate  rebellious  serfs  with  fire  and  sword, 
whether  with  more  subtle  intention  he  devised  some 
cunningly  delusive  form  of  charter,  or  contrived  to 
hinder  all  the  operations  of  free  government,  to  thwart 
its  developement,  and  to  check  the  spread  of  its  influ- 
ence, the  tragic  close  was  always  at  hand — political 
slavery  and  degradation.  Amid  the  innumerable 
troubles  that  compassed  the  French  communes  round 
about,  the  administrative  difficulties,  the  financial 
cares,  the  public  bankruptcy  of  town  after  town,, 
the  evil  moments  when  the  king's  fiscal  officer  and 
the  starving  people  made  alliance  to  destroy  the 
privileges  of  the  burghers,  civic  freedom  failed. 
Time  and  fate  were  allied  against  the  commune,  and 
the  issue  of  the  battle  was  decided  before  the  fight 
had  well  begun. 

Against  the  century  of  growth  and  the  century 
of  decay  which  made  up  the  record  of  the  French 
communes,  we  have  to  set  three  hundred  years  of 
unbroken  prosperity  and  privilege  in  which  the 
English  burghers  added  charter  to  charter  and  filled 
their  "  common  chests  "  with  a  regularity  that  knew 
no  check.  It  is  not  necessary,  however,  to  assume 


32  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

that  Englishmen  reached  that  happy  state  wholly  by 
virtue  of  their  native  superiority ;  it  would  perhaps 
be  truer  to  thank  the  good  fortune  of  insignificance 
that  so  long  waited  on  them.     England,  in  fact,  was 
lagging  far  away  in  the  rear,  where  there  was  little 
of  the  noise  and  dust  of  battle.     It  was  not  there  that 
the  idea  of  municipal  liberty  was  first  proclaimed ; 
for  in  the  Dark  Ages  of  riot  and  disorder  and  piracy, 
Celts,    Latins,    Teutons,    all    the    members    of    the 
European  brotherhood  in  fact,  found  in  association 
their   natural    succour    against    danger   and   aid   to 
labour ;  and    along    the     great    trade    routes    that 
traversed   Europe    the   more   important   societies   of 
men  confederated  for  protection  and  assistance  were 
formed  before  ever  Englishmen  had  begun  to  organize 
themselves  into  self-governing  communities.     In  that 
European  drama,  everything  took  great  continental 
proportions ;    men   disputed   for   tremendous  stakes, 
and  in  the  long  battle  the  mighty  lords  of  the  old 

o         «/ 

world  were  never  wholly  routed,  but  still  laid  their 
grip  on  the  modern  society  that  was  struggling  to 
usher  in  a  new  order.  In  the  great  fight  there  were 
great  defeats,  such  as  we  have  seen  in  France,  and 
liberty  had  to  begin  its  course  afresh  and  lead  men 
along  new  roads  in  search  of  freedom  and  content. 
But  we  in  our  distant  island  had  throughout  the 
Middle  Ages  all  the  advantages  of  obscurity.  Accord- 
ing to  any  valid  method  of  determining  our  place  in 
the  European  order,  whether  by  yearly  income,  or 
size  of  merchant  fleets,  or  strength  of  armies,  or 
number  of  inhabitants,  we  remained  for  a  time  after 
the  loss  of  Normandy  and  Anjou  unimportant  in  the 


ir  THE  ENGLISH  TOWNS  33 

eyes  of  Europe — of  little  account  among  the  peoples  ; 
and  as  far  as  popular  feeling  went  ourselves  heedless 
of  what  went  on  on  the  Continent.1  Tranquil  and 
secure  because  no  one  took  the  trouble  to  think 
of  us  while  we  were  regardless  of  their  quarrels, 
we  were  left  to  learn  our  lessons  as  slowly  as  we 
would,  to  lay  sure,  if  lowly,  foundations,  to  practise 
our  skill  by  safe  experiments  till  our  art  was  mastered. 
The  humble  display  which  we  made  in  our  national 
capacity  was  repeated  in  our  municipal  story.  There 
indeed  the  tiny  dominion  of  the  community,  the 
sparse  population,  the  poor  little  treasure-box,  the 
solitary  "common  barge,"  the  handful  of  militia 
passing  in  review  with  their  clubs  and  forks,  present 
a  sorry  figure  beside  the  majestic  state  of  the  big 
corporations  over  sea.  But  this  humble  condition 
was  their  true  security.  Set  from  the  first  in  pleasant 
places  where  by  conquering  kings  the  lofty  had 
been  brought  low  and  the  humble  lifted  up,  and 
where  no  enemy  of  invincible  strength  lay  any  longer 
across  their  path,  the  burghers  might  carry  on  their 
own  business  without  care.  Within  the  narrow 
area  enclosed  by  the  city  wall  and  ditch,  amid  a 
scanty  population  scarcely  bigger  than  that  of  a  small 
country  town  to-day,  experiments  which  would 
have  been  impossible  on  a  great  scale  were  tried 
with  every  conceivable  variety  of  circumstance  and 
expedient ;  and  the  boroughs  owed  to  their  early  in- 
significance and  isolation  a  freedom  from  restraint 

1  M.  Jusserand  in  his  Epopee  Mystique  du  Moyen  Age  has 
well  pointed  out  that  the  war  with  France  was  royal  rather  than 
national.  Pp.  7-9,  117. 

VOL.  I  D 


43          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY     CHAP.  1 

and   dictation    in    which    real     political     experience 
became  possible. 

Thus  in  England,  as  elsewhere,  the  character  of 
the  nation  and  the  mould  of  its  political  thought  were 
ultimately  shaped  by  outward  circumstance ;  and 
the  forms  of  our  freedom  have  been  profoundly 
affected  by  the  way  which  the  towns  took  to  liberty, 
by  the  manner  in  which  they  modified  its  expression 
according  to  the  peculiar  conditions  to  which  each 
community  was  subject,  and  by  the  use  they  made  of 
their  power.  But  since  the  very  existence  of  the 
towns  as  important  centres  of  life,  as  well  as  the 
character  of  their  development,  depends  on  the  com- 
plete transformation  which  English  society  underwent 
in  the  later  Middle  Ages,  I  venture,  before  beginning 
my  real  story,  to  give  a  very  brief  and  rapid  sketch 
of  the  Industrial  and  Commercial  Eevolution  in 
which  mediaeval  England  was  buried  and  modern 
England  born. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION    OF   THE    FIFTEENTH 
CENTURY 

THE  history  of  the  fifteenth  century  has  long 
remained  but  little  known.  It  is  very  generally 
regarded  as  the  "  profoundly  tragic  close  of  a  great 
epoch,"  and  the  historian  looks  back  to  the  golden  age 
of  the  thirteenth  century  as  the  glorious  time  of  English 
and  of  European  history — the  culminating  period  to 
which  all  the  foregoing  generations  slowly  mounted, 
and  from  whose  heights  the  later  sons  of  men  as 
slowly  and  surely  declined  and  went  backward. 
The  period  of  this  backsliding  is  seen  as  an  age 
altogether  wanting  in  picturesqueness  and  moral 
elevation,  sunk  in  materialism,  sordid  and  vulgar, 
a  time  of  confused  and  indiscriminate  corruption, 
where  "  heart  and  treasure  "  were  linked  in  ignoble 
union,  and  the  political  demoralization  of  the  people 
was  only  matched  by  their  private  degradation  ;  and 
the  fifteenth  century  has  long  borne  the  heavy 
burden  of  its  evil  reputation,  while  its  records  have 
been  left  comparatively  undisturbed  by  inquisitive 

D  2 


36  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP, 

search.1  For  hackneyed  as  the  period  of  the  Wars  of 
the  Roses  may  seem  to  the  superficial  reader,  no 
student  has  yet  adequately  studied  the  secret  of  the 
age  in  which  the  great  revolutions  of  the  next  century 
were  being  prepared — the  age  which  made  possible  for 
England  the  revival  of  letters  and  the  reformation, 
which  founded  her  commercial  greatness,  which 
revolutionized  her  industrial  system,  which  cast  away 
the  last  bonds  of  feudalism  and  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  modern  State. 

It  is  indeed  true  that  no  great  man  has  made 
this   century  illustrious.     No   general  or   warrior  of 

1  Stubbs,  Lectures  on  Mediaeval  History,  p.  342;  Friedman, 
Anne  Boleyn,  i.  pp.  1-4  ;  Gneist,  La  Constitution  Communale, 
trans,  by  Hippert,  i.  p.  334,  &c.  "  England  at  the  accession  of 
Henry  the  Seventh  was  far  behind  the  England  of  the  thirteenth 
century."  (Dentou,  Lectures  on  the  Fifteenth  Century,  120,  118.) 
•'  This  low  and  material  view  of  domestic  life  had  led  to  an 
equally  low  and  material  view  of  political  life,  and  the  cruelty 
which  stained  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  was  but  the  outcome  of  a 
state  of  society  in  which  no  man  cared  much  for  anything  except 
his  own  greatness  and  enjoyment.  The  ideal  which  shaped  itself  in 
the  minds  of  the  men  of  the  middle  class  was  a  king  acting  as  a  kind 
of  chief  constable,  who,  by  keeping  great  men  in  order,  would  allow 
their  inferiors  to  make  money  in  peace."  (Gardiner's  Student's 
History,  330-1.)  "The  despondency  of  the  English  people,  when 
their  dream  of  conquest  in  France  was  dissipated,  was  attended 
with  a  complete  decay  of  thought,  with  civil  war,  and  with  a 
standing  still  or  perhaps  a  decline  of  population,  and  to  a  less 
degree  of  wealth."  (National  Life  and  Character,  by  Charles 
Pearson,  p.  130-1.)  "  There  are  fewmore  pitiful  episodes  in  history. 
Thirty-five  years  of  a  war  that  was  as  unjust  as  it  was  unfortu- 
nate had  both  soured  and  demoralised  the  nation."  "  England 
had  entirely  ceased  to  count  as  a  naval  power."  As  for  the 
burgesses,  "  if  not  actively  mischievous  they  were  sordidly  inert." 
(Oman's  Warwick,  4-11,  67,  133.) 


II  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  37 

the  first  rank  distinguished  wars  which  were  born 
in  iniquity,  and  kept  alive  by  greed.  No  gifted 
statesman  left  his  mark  on  the  government  or  ad- 
ministration of  the  country.  Among  the  people 
themselves  interest  in  national  affairs  seemed  dead  ; 
they  made  revolutions  and  set  up  new  kings  as 
they  were  -bidden  to  do,  and  kept  stores  of  badges  of 
the  houses  of  York  and  Lancaster  alike,  to  be  ready 
with  either  sign  of  loyalty  as  the  fortunes  of  war  turned 
this  way  or  that ; l  they  forgot  the  stirring  political 

1  In  Ricart's  Calendar  in  Bristol  he  enters  duly  the  fact  that  a 
battle  had  been  fought  and  that  one  side  or  other  was  victorious 
without  further  comment.  He  misplaces  the  date  of  the  murder 
of  Suffolk  three  years,  though  he  might  well  have  remembered  it ; 
and  he  writes  as  a  sort  of  after-thought  in  the  margin  of  his 
record,  "  and  this  year  the  two  sons  of  King  Edward  were  put 
to  silence  in  the  Tower  of  London."  (Ricart,  40-46.)  In  1460 
Norwich  had  its  captain  and  120  soldiers  with  King  Henry  in 
the  north,  and  all  the  rest  of  its  available  forces  had  to  hurry 
off  to  Edward  at  his  accession.  (Blomefield  iii.  162-163.)  The 
city  raised  £160  for  the  coming  of  Richard  the  Third  to  the 
•city,  and  £140  for  the  coming  of  Henry  the  Seventh.  (Ibid. 
173-174.)  For  Nottingham,  see  vol.  ii.  There  is  no  mention  of 
Bosworth  in  Canterbury,  and  Henry  the  Seventh  was  received 
with  the  same  pomp  as  former  kings.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  145.) 
For  Bosworth,  where  men  stood  afar  off  waiting  to  join  the  vic- 
torious side,  see  Fabyan,  672-673.  The  policy  of  the  burghers  was 
the  same  in  this  respect  as  that  of  the  great  Churchmen,  who 
were  entirely  passive  in  the  real  crises  of  the  civil  war,  and 
so  ready  to  serve  every  king,  that  not  one  of  them  suffered 
loss  from  fidelity  to  any  side.  (Rogers'  Agricul.  and  Prices, 
iv.  9,  10.)  The  people  in  general  were  equally  indifferent. 
"  I  have  read  thousands  of  documents  penned  during  the  heat  of 
the  strife,  and  have  found  only  one  allusion  to  the  character  of 
the  times  in  the  earlier,  and  one  about  the  later  war  of  1470-1." 
(Ibid.,  19.)  An  interesting  parallel  to  the  indifference  of  the 


38          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP, 

ballads  of  former  generations  and  sang  moral  ditties 
instead.  In  place  of  the  mighty  theologians  of  an 
earlier  time  there  came  commentators  and  interpreters 
of  little  significance.  Nor  did  a  single  religious  leader 
or  reformer  or  scholar  arise  to  stir  the  popular  thought 
or  conscience  :  Lollardy  with  its  questionings  and  criti- 
cisms was  still  heard  of  from  time  to  time  in  the  bigger 
towns  and  manufacturing  districts,  but  the  people 
generally  acquiesced  in  the  demands  of  the  authorized 
religion  and  discipline.  Literature  was  well  nigh 
lost  as  well  as  the  graver  kinds  of  learning.  In  the 
beginning  of  the  century  one  or  two  nobles  had  col- 
lected libraries  and  brought  tidings  of  the  Renascence 
in  Italy,  and  later  on  half  a  dozen  scholars  made  their 
way  to  the  Italian  universities ;  but  there  was  neither 
poet  nor  scholar  to  follow  the  masters  of  an  earlier  age. 
In  the  fifteenth  century  the  very  language  in  which 
Chaucer  wrote  was  but  half  intelligible  to  the  mass 
of  the  people,  and  his  tales  must  have  been  unknown 
out  of  court  circles.  Men  were  content  with  rhymes 
innumerable — on  morals,  on  manners,  on  heraldry,  on 
the  art  of  dining,  on  the  rules  of  thrift  and  pros- 
perity ;  and  in  all  our  history  there  is  no  time  so 
barren  in  literature  as  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Sixth. 

Even  in  a  democratic  age  it  is  not  easy  at  first 
sight  to  recognise  where  the  interest  lies  of  an  epoch 
destitute  of  all  that  has  made  other  times  illus- 
trious, and  whose  significance  seems  to  shrink  in 

trading  communities  of  the  fifteenth  century  during  the  Wars  of 
the  Roses  may  be  seen  in  the  action  of  the  Merchants'  Company 
in  the  civil  wars  of  the  seventeenth  century.  (Lambert's  Gild 
Life,  177-178.) 


ii  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  39 

comparison  with  the  struggles  and  victories  of  the 
ages  that  preceded,  and  the  splendid  achievements  of 
the  age  that  followed  it ;  and  historians  finding 
themselves  face  to  face  with  so  dreary  a  century 
may  have  been  tempted  to  give  it  a  character  of 
its  own  for  grossness,  for  cruelty,  for  any  distinction 
whatever  which  will  at  least  take  it  out  of 
the  range  of  the  absolutely  commonplace.  But  the 
distinguishing  mark  of  the  fifteenth  century  lies 
neither  in  its  crime  nor  in  its  vulgarity.  We  must 
judge  this  period  in  fact  as  a  time  of  transition  in 
many  ways  extraordinarily  like  our  own.  In  the 
centuries  between  the  Great  Plague  and  the  Eeforma- 
tion,  just  as  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  real 
significance  of  our  history  lies  in  the  advent  of  a 
new  class  to  wealth  and  power,  as  the  result  of  a  great 
industrial  revolution.  The  breaking  up  of  an  old 
aristocratic  order,  and  the  creation  of  a  middle  class 
to  be  brought  into  politics  and  even  into  "  society," 
the  enormous  increase  of  material  wealth,  the  new 
relation  of  the  various  ranks  to  one  another,  and  the 
failure  under  altered  circumstances  of  traditional  rules 
of  conduct,  the  varied  careers  suddenly  opened  to 
talent  or  ambition,  the  reproach  for  the  first  time 
attached  to  incompetence  and  poverty,  the  vulgar- 
ization of  literature  and  morality  which  followed  on 
their  adaptation  to  a  class  as  yet  untrained  to  criti- 
cism or  comparison,  the  extension  of  a  habit  of 
religion  closely  related  to  a  plain  morality — all  these 
things  recall  to  us  many  of  the  experiences  of  our 
own  days,  and  may  make  us  more  tolerant  of  the 
unpicturesque  and  Philistine  element  whether  then 


40  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

or  now.  If  the  chief  centre  of  interest  had  once  lain 
in  the  offices  of  the  royal  palace  it  might  now  be  seen 
rather  in  the  new  Town  Hall  which  was  being  built 
in  almost  every  borough  in  England,  or  in  the  office 
where  the  mayor's  clerk  was  busied  in  making  his 
copies  of  Magna  Charta  or  extracts  of  Domesday,  or 
in  translating  from  the  old  French  the  customs  and 
ordinances  of  the  town,  or  in  hunting  up  the  rolls  of 
the  itinerant  judges ;  or  over  the  country-side  where 
estates  were  being  sold  and  bought  with  the  develop- 
ment of  a  provincial  instead  of  a  national  nobility 
and  the  rise  of  new  men  to  possess  the  old  acres, 
and  where  the  quickening  of  the  struggle  for  life 
was  reflected  in  the  stormy  conflicts  and  signifi- 
cant concessions  of  the  manor  courts.  The  new 
middle  class  of  shopkeepers  and  farmers  had  indeed 
no  chroniclers  and  no  flatterers,  for  it  was  long  before 
men  could  realise  how  rapidly  and  completely  the 
weight  of  influence  was  being  transferred  from  the 
old  governing  class  to  the  mass  of  the  governed,  and 
chroniclers  still  went  on  mechanically  retailing  events 
now  comparatively  trivial  and  unimportant.  It  was 
not  till  the  next  century  that  they  turned  from 
spinning  out  these  worthless  annals  to  a  discussion  of 
matters  really  important  which  had  by  that  time 
forced  themselves  on  the  dullest  apprehension. 

The  whole  interest  of  the  fifteenth  century  thus 
lies  in  the  life  of  very  common  folk — of  artisans  and  y 
tradesmen  in  the  towns,  and  in  country  parts  of 
the  farmers,  the  tenants  of  the  new  grazing  lands', 
the  stewards  and  bailiffs  and  armies  of  dependents  on 
the  great  estates,  who  did  all  the  work  at  home  while 


n  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  41 

the  lord  was  away  at  the  wars  or  at  the  halls  of 
"Westminster.  If  the  century  produced  no  great 
administrator  or  statesman,  it  did  create  a  whole 
class  of  men  throughout  the  country  trained  in 
practical  affairs,  doing  an  admirable  work  of  local 
government,  active,  enterprising,  resolute,  public- 
spirited,  disciplined  in  the  best  of  all  schools  for 
political  service.  If  there  was  no  great  writer,  the 
new  world  of  the  middle  class  was  patiently  teaching 
itself,  founding  its  schools,  learning  its  primary  rules 
of  etiquette  and  its  simple  maxims  of  morals,  reading 
its'  manuals  of  agriculture  or  law  or  history,  practising 
its  Latin  rhymes,  and  building  up  in  its  own  fashion 
from  new  beginnings  a  learning  which  the  aristocratic 
class  had  been  too  proud,  too  indifferent,  or  too  remote 
to  hand  on  to  it.1  If  no  religious  revival  shook  the 
country,  the  new  society  was  solving  in  its  own  way 
the  problem  of  helping  the  sick  and  poor ; 2  it  was 

1  See  vol.  ii.  ch.  i. 

2  In  Lydd  corn  was   given  to   the   poor   at   Christmas   and 
Easter,  and  gifts  to  lepers;  payments  made  from  1480-1485  for 
Goderynge's  daughter,  "poor  maid,"  "hosen,  shoes,  her   keep, 
kertyl-cloth    and    for    making    thereof;    also   in    1490,    "paid 
to   the   poor   man  keeping  the   poor   child    12    pence."     After 
a  long  list  of  expenses  for  a  thief  and  making  stocks  for  him  and 
a  halter,  "paid  for  one  pair  of  shoes  to  his  daughter  3d."  and 
"given   to   the    quest    of    women  4tZ." ;  summoned  perhaps  in 
reference  to  the  daughter.     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  527,  526.)     In 
Bye  sums  were  paid  to  the  poor  on  opening  the  box  of  maltotes. 
(Ibid.  494.)     For  Southampton,  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  3,  112  ;  the 
steward's  book  in  1441  contains  a  list  of  alms,  .£4  2s.  Id.,  given 
away  every  week  to  poor  men  and  women.  (Davies,  294.)  Accord- 
ing to  the  usual  calculation  at  this  time  in  almshouses  of    a 
penny  a  day  for  living,  this  sum  would  mean  that  the  corpora- 


42  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

earnest  in  religious  observance,  it  was  framing  its 
English  litanies  and  devising  its  own  plans  for  teach- 
ing the  people  an  intelligent  devotion.1  The  burghers 

tion  paid  weekly  for  the  mere  subsistence  of  140  persons.  For 
Bristol,  Ricart's  Kalendar,  72-80,  82,  &c.  For  Chester,  Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  viii.  371.  For  Komney,  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  535-6. 
The  Mayor  of  Sandwich  had  to  manage  the  hospitals  of  S. 
Bartholomew  and  S.' John,  to  appoint  their  officers,  to  audit  their 
accounts,  and  administer  their  estates  made  up  of  innumerable 
parcels  of  land  and  houses  left  by  pious  people.  (Boys,  17—21, 
526.)  The  municipal  council  of  Exeter  appointed  every  year 
a  Warden  of  the  Poor  to  look  after  their  many  charitable  founda- 
tions. It  had  charge  of  Magdalen  Hospital,  of  the  Ten  Cells 
Hospital  for  Poor,  founded  in  1406  by  Simon  Grendon,  Mayor ; 
the  Combrew  Almshouse,  founded  by  Sir  William  Bonville,  1408  ; 
and  an  almshouse  founded  by  John  Palmer.  (Freeman's  Exeter, 
175-6.)  There  was  a  municipal  almshouse  in  Hereford  supported 
by  way  of  payment  to  the  corporation  from  ecclesiastical  tenants 
for  a  share  in  the  city's  privileges.  (Arch.  Ass.  Journ.  xxvii. 
481.)  In  the  fifteenth  century  bequests  by  burgesses  for  these 
purposes  were  very  frequent  and  were  usually  left  to  the  manage- 
ment of  the  corporation.  In  all  large  towns  the  mayor  and 
aldermen  presided  over  the  court  of  orphans.  (Davies's  South- 
ampton, 239.)  The  indications  of  poor  relief  by  the  towns  must 
modify  Mr.  Ashley's  conclusion  (Economic  History,  I.  part  ii. 
338)  that  "  no  attempt  was  made  by  the  State  as  a  whole,  or  by 
any  secular  public  authority,  to  relieve  distress.  The  work  was 
left  entirely  to  the  Church,  and  to  the  action  of  religious  motives 
upon  the  minds  of  individuals.'"'  It  seems  difficult  to  follow  in 
this  connexion  his  distinction  drawn  between  the  craft  associa- 
tions which  had  or  had  not  grown  out  of  religious  fraternities 
(p.  325). 

1  Besides  the  customary  Latin  prayers  a  Norfolk  guild  used 
English  prayers  for  Church  and  State,  harvest  and  travellers, 
like  our  Litany.  (English  Guilds,  111-114.)  The  play  of  the 
Lord's  Prayer  was  performed  by  a  York  guild.  "  They  are 
bound  to  find  one  candle-bearer,  with  seven  lights,  in  token  of 
the  seven  supplications  in  the  Lord's  Prayer."  "  Also  they  are 


ii  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  43 

began  to  perform  in  the  national  economy  the  work 
which  in  earlier  centuries  had  been  performed  by  the 
great  monastic  societies.  The  extension  of  trade  and 
manufacture  had  fallen  into  their  hands ;  they  were 
busied  in  the  gathering  together  and  storing  up  of  the 
national  wealth.1  They  gave  to  labour  a  new  dignity 
in  social  life  and  a  new  place  in  the  national  councils. 
From  the  towns  came  a  perpetual  protest  against  war 
and  disorder ;  throughout  the  troubles  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  civil  war,  court  intrigues,  the  tyranny  of 
usurpers  and  the  plots  of  the  vanquished,  local  raids 
of  private  revenge  or  of  land  hunger,  their  influence 
was  always  thrown  on  the  side  of  peace  and  quietness. 
Art  found  in  them  patrons ;  illuminators  and  painters, 
architects  and  bell-founders,  the  makers  of  delicate 
shrines  and  images,2  engravers  of  seals,  goldsmiths 

bound  to  make,  and  as  often  as  need  be  to  renew,  a  table  showing 
the  whole  meaning  and  use  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  to  keep 
this  hanging  against  a  pillar  in  the  said  cathedral  church  near 
to  the  aforesaid  candle-bearer."  (Ibid.  137-9.)  See  also  Hibbert's 
Shrewsbury  Guilds,  62.  For  Pecok  as  "  the  first  author  of  the 
Middle  Ages  who  propounded  reason  as  a  judge  of  faith,"  and 
one  who  "  might  be  claimed  as  at  once  the  forerunner  of  the 
Erastian  theory  of  the  church,  and  of  the  Rationalist  interpreta- 
tion of  its  theology  "  ;  and  for  the  place  now  given  to  general 
councils  see  Rogers's  Agriculture  and  Prices,  iv.  11-13.  For  the 
first  signs  that  the  revenues  of  monastic  houses  were  to  be 
devoted  to  other  purposes.  (Ibid.  101.) 

1  Agriculture  remained  stationary  during    the  fifteenth  and 
sixteenth  centuries.     It  was  in  fact  but  little  changed  from  the 
time  when  Walter  of  Henley  published  his  treatise  until  the 
time  when  Fitz  Herbert  wrote  his  work  about  1523  embodying 
most  of  the  rules  which  Walter  had  given  before  him.     The  real 
progress  lay  not  in  the  country  but  in  the  town. 

2  Nott.  Records,  ii.  143,  145,  167,  179,  121 ;  iii.  21,  29. 


44  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

and  workers  in  brass,  whether  of  English  birth  or 
brought  from  foreign  parts,  prospered  within  their 
gates ;  while  their  harpers  and  minstrels  doubtless 
had  a  part  in  the  musical  developement  of  the  country 
at  a  time  when  English  artists  set  the  fashion  of  the 
best  music  as  far  as  the  court  of  Burgundy.1  They  laid 
in  fact  the  foundations  of  a  new  English  society.  The 
men  of  the  New  Learning,  the  men  of  the  Eeformation, 
the  men  who  revealed  the  New  World,  were  men  who 
had  been  formed  under  the  influences  of  the  fifteenth 
century. 

All  this  activity  was  the  outcome  of  the  great 
industrial  and  commercial  revolution  which  was 
passing  over  the  country.  Until  the  middle 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  England  had  been  to 
Europe  what  Australia  is  to-day — a  country  known 
only  as  the  provider  of  the  raw  material  of  commerce.2 
At  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century  she  had  taken 
her  place  as  a  centre  of  manufactures,  whose  finished 
goods  were  distributed  in  all  the  great  markets  of  the 
Mediterranean  and  of  the  Northern  Seas.  It  is  no 

1  Clement,  Jacques    Coeur,    196-7.      Nicholas   Sturgeon   was 
ordered  by  the  Privy  Council  in  1442   "to  go  and  choose  six 
singers  of  England  such  as  the  messenger  that  is  come  from  the 
Emperor  will  desire  for  to  go  to  the  Emperor."     Proceedings  and 
Ordinances  of  Privy  Council,  ed.  Sir   Harris  Nicholas,  1834,  v. 
218. 

2  Mr.  Jacobs  tells  me  that  he  has  found  no  direct  evidence  of 
Jews  lending  to  townspeople  in  the  twelfth  century ;  there  are 
only  some  indications  such   as  that  they   sought  for  debtors  in 
S.  Paul's ;  (The  Jews  of  Angevin  England,  p.  45)  and  that  they 
claimed  to  attend  the  assizes  at  Bury.     (Ibid.   142.)     If   their 
business  lay,  as  it  seems,  with  nobles  and  landowners,  it  would 
prove  the  absence  of  any  demand  for  capital  in  the  towns. 


ii  THE   INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  45 

wonder  that  during  a  change  which  transformed  the 
country  from  a  land  of  agricultural  villages  into  a 
land  of  manufacturing  towns,  and  opened  for  her  the 
mighty  struggle  to  become  the  carrier  of  the  world's 
commerce,  the  whole  energy  of  her  people,  thrown 
into  a  single  channel,  should  be  absorbed  in  accom- 
plishing their  enormous  task.  Every  one  was  honestly 
busy  in  learning  either  how  to  make  or  how  to 
sell,  and  in  conquering  the  difficulties  that  beset 
traders  as  they  strove  to  push  their  way  into 
the  world's  market  on  equal  or,  if  possible,  more  than 
equal  terms  with  competitors  who  had  long  held 
unquestioned  supremacy. 

From  the  twelfth  century  wool  had  been  the  one 
great  export  of  England,  and  the  one  great  source  of 
wealth  for  nobles,  churchmen,  farmers,  even  kings. 
So  important  was  its  sale  that  statesmen  very  early 
saw  the  necessity  of  securing  for  the  national  Exchequer 
a  share  in  the  profits  of  the  main  national  trade ;  and 
in  aid  of  the  royal  treasury  they  devised  in  the  first 
half  of  the  thirteenth  century  a  system  which  was 
quite  peculiar  to  England,  the  organization  of  the 
Staple.1 

The  Staple  was  an  appointed  place  to  which  alone 
certain  goods  might  be  brought  for  sale,  raw  materials 
such  as  wool,  wool-fells,  skins,  lead,  or  tin,  of  which 
wool  was  far  the  most  important.  Fixed  for  the  first 
hundred  years  in  some  foreign  town,  generally  in 
Bruges,  it  was  shifted  from  place  to  place  by  Edward 

1  For  an  account  of  the  Staple  see  Schanz,  i.  327  et  seq. ;  von 
Ochenkowski,  Englands  Wirthschaftliche  Entwickelung  im 
Ausgange  des  Mittelalters,  220  ;  Stubbs,  ii.  446-8. 


46  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP, 

the  Third,  who  from  1353  made  various  experiments 
as  to  establishing  it  in  England ;  but  finally  about 
1390,  Calais  was  decided  upon  as  the  most  advan- 
tageous   spot.      Thither    every  dealer  had    to  carry 
his    wares    (unless    he    was    ready   to   pay   a    high 
tax    to    the    Crown,    or    to     buy     at     the    King's 
price    a    license    for   free    trading) ;     and    he    must 
carry  them   along   certain   appointed   routes  only — 
from  Lincoln  by  St.  Botolph,  from  Norwich  by  Yar- 
mouth, from  Westminster  by  London,  from  Canterbury 
by  Sandwich,  from  Winchester  by  Southampton,  as 
the  government  in  its  wisdom  might  decide.     In  a 
kind  of  secondary  sense  these  places  where  the  wool 
was  gathered  for  export  thus  became  towns  of  the 
Staple,  and  certain  officers,  Mayors  and  Aldermen  of 
the  Staple  were  appointed  to  control  their  trade.    The 
merchants'  goods,  first  weighed  at  the  point  of  de- 
parture, must  be  weighed  again  at  the  port  where 
they  were  shipped,  and  sealed  with  the  seal  of  the 
Mayor  of  the  Staple,  while  to  check  fraud  there  was 
an  elaborate  system  of  official  papers  ,to  be  sent  to 
the  Treasury  in  London  and  to  the  Staple  in  Calais 
for  every  such  transaction  of  weighing  and  toll-taking. 
Every  possible  precaution  was  taken  to  maintain  the 
position   of   the  merchants  in  the  European  market 
by  rules  which  practically  forced  the  wool  into  the 
hands  of  foreign  and  not  native  buyers,  so  that  English 
traders  complained  that  their  interests  were  sacrificed 
to  courting  the  patronage  of  the  Continent.     If,   for 
example,  the  chief  Staple  town  was  for  any  reason 
moved  from  over  sea  to  England,  native  dealers  were 
absolutely  forbidden  to  export  any  Staple  wares,  so 


n  THE   INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  47 

that  foreigners  might  be  forced  or  encouraged  to  come 
and  take  part  in  the  trade.  Foreign  dealers  were 
allowed  to  vote  along  with  them  for  officials,  and  so  late 
as  1445  the  English  merchants  vainly  prayed  that  no 
Stapler  might  take  part  in  election  of  Mayor  or  Con- 
stable of  the  Staple  unless  he  had  ten  sacks  of  wool 
cocketed  at  Calais. 

In  thus  forcing  all  the  export  trade  of  the  country 
through  one  narrow  channel  the  first  purpose  of  the 
State  was  merely  to  provide  a  convenient  method  of 
gathering  customs  into  the  Exchequer  ;  and  in  course 
of  time  it  further  discovered  that  this  trading  system 
might  be  used  as  a  weapon  against  foreign  peoples  in 
case  of  quarrel.  But  the  very  last  object  of  the  Staple 
organization  was  the  convenience  of  the  traders.  Nor 
had  the  merchants  themselves  any  illusions  in  this 
respect.  To  them  the  Staple  seemed  at  its  beginning 
contrary  to  the  liberties  of  Magna  Charta ; l  and  a  long 
experience  taught  them  how  its  provisions  might  keep 
them  shut  in  between  the  rapacity  of  those  in  author- 
ity and  the  hatred  of  the  farmers  who  produced  the 
wool  which  they  sold.2  They  could  however  still 
wring  a  rich  advantage  out  of  superficial  calamity 
—the  advantage  to  be  found  in  monopoly  and  corpor- 
ate privilege — and  this  was  developed  with  consum- 
mate art.  The  wool  trade  gathered  into  their  hands 
was  hedged  round  with  monopolies  and  regulations, 
protected  by  fixed  prices  and  times  of  sale.  The 
concourse  of  customers  at  Calais  was  diligently 
maintained ;  no  buyer  was  allowed  to  order  his  work 
through  a  commission  house,  so  that  traders  might 
1  Schanz,  i.  329,  &c.  2  Ibid.  657. 


48          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

be  forced  to  come  to  the  market  in  person  and 
do  their  business.  By  the  charter  of  Edward 
the  Third  a  Mayor  and  twenty-four  Aldermen 
chosen  by  the  whole  body  of  merchants  absolutely 
ruled  the  Staple  trade,  appointed  officers,  supervised 
markets,  made  regulations  as  to  the  treatment  of 
foreigners,  the  duties  of  inn-keepers,  or  the  general  con- 
duct of  business,  and  administered  justice  according 
to  the  Law  Merchant  with  a  sworn  jury  of  foreign- 
ers or  English  or  both  together,  according  to  the 
case  to  be  tided.1  And  since  the  governing  body  had 
general  control  beyond  Calais,  itself  over  all  English 
merchants,  not  only  in  Bruges  but  throughout 
Flanders,  while  they  governed  in  England  through 
their  local  officers,  the  power  of  the  Staple  extended 
far  and  wide  and  brought  all  the  scattered  merchants 
under  one  general  organization.2  Formidable  through 
their  wealth  and  power,  they  could  command  the 
support  of  English  kings  and  Burgundian  dukes 
against  rival  traders.  The  profits  to  be  made  at 
Calais  tempted  the  landowners  at  home,5  and  all  wha 
were  wealthy  enough  to  pay  the  required  dues  and 
fees  flocked  into  their  body,  till  the  great  association 
at  last  included  all  rich  wool-growers  and  shut  out 
only  the  poor  farmers  and  people  of  no  account  in  the 
country.  Their  monopoly  was  so  complete,  and  their 
discipline  so  effective,  that  they  could  absolutely  dic- 

1  Schanz,  i.  543  ;  von  Ochenkowski,  216-7.  For  the  Law 
Merchant  see  Mr.  Maitland's  Pleas  in  Manorial  Courts  (Selden 
Soc.),  p.  137.  For  Staple  Statutes  see  14  R.  II.  cap.  3,  4. 

'2  Schanz,  i.  332,  338. 

:;  See  Paston  Letters,  iii.  166. 


II  THE  INDUSTEIAL  EEVOLUTION  49 

tate  prices ;  and  a  judicious  pooling  system  took  away 
any  temptation  on  the  part  of  the  members  to  break 
the  ranks.1  At  last  against  the  original  intentions  of 
legislators  they  even  got  into  their  own  hands  the 
carrying  of  the  export  trade,  and  so  long  as  wool 
remained  the  chief  export  of  England  80  per  cent,  of 
this  trade  passed  through  their  hands. 

But  so  far  as  the  State  was  concerned  all  this  elabor- 
ate system  for  the  protection  of  the  wool-trade  had 
simply  grown  out  of  the  fundamental  conception  of 
the  Staple  as  a  fruitful  source  of  supply  for  the  royal 
treasury  ;  and  this  theory  was  carried  out  to  its  logical 
issues.  A  fixed  sum  was  demanded  from  the  mer- 
chants year  by  year  which  they  had  to  pay  whether 
their  trade  was  good  or  bad ;  while  in  their  mercantile 
dealings  they  were  terribly  hampered  by  a  host  of 
regulations  issued  as  to  the  mint  in  Calais,  and  invented 
by  financiers  who  from  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century  were  haunted  by  alarms  as  to  a  possible  dearth 
of  gold  and  silver,  and  arbitrarily  used  the  Staple  as 
a  means  of  forcing  the  flow  of  precious  metal  into 
England.2  Nor  was  the  drain  of  taxation  at  all  times 
legal  and  regular.  Merchants  paid  money  down  for 
the  protection  and  favour  of  the  king  in  reiterated 
loans  or  gifts,  whether  free  or  forced.  The  Captain  of 
Calais,  as  head  of  the  only  standing  army  which  the 
English  kings  then  possessed,  advanced  a  kind  of  public 
claim  on  the  Staplers'  wealth  for  the  security  of  his 

1  Schanz,  i.  501. 

2  Von  Ochenkowski,   202,    210;  Schanz,  495-500.      Petition 
of  merchants  in  1 442  to  be  relieved  from  these  rules  refused. 
Proc.  Privy  Council,  v.  217. 

VOL.  I  E 


50  TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY     CHAP. 

soldiers'  pay ;  and  the  merchants  had  many  a  time 
good  reason  to  tremble  for  their  wool,  and  might  cry 
in  vain  for  redress  if  their  whole  store  was  confiscated 
to  pay  the  soldiers'  arrears  of  two  or  three  years,  or  if 
militant  lords  "  shifted  with  the  Staple  of  Calais  "  for 
£18,000  or  so  for  costs  of  war.1 

All  these  burdens  however  could  be  borne  so  long 
as  business  prospered  in  their  hands.  If  a  Parliament 
like  that  of  1258,  or  a  great  statesman  like  Simon  de 
Montfort,  urged  that  England  should  herself  become 
an  independent  and  self-supporting  centre  of  manu- 
factures, these  seemed  as  idle  words  to  monopolists 
dealing  in  wool  with  command  of  the  world's  market, 
who  saw  no  need  to  forsake  their  easy  path  to 
wealth  at  a  moment  when  the  growth  of  manufactures 
in  the  Netherlands  opened  a  vast  market  for  English 
produce.  In  the  time  of  Edward  the  Third  it  is  said 
that  30,000  sacks  of  wool  were  shipped  every  year 
from  English  ports.2 

But  before  the  reign  of  Edward  had  closed,  the 
exporters  of  wool  knew  that  they  had  fallen  on  evil 
days.  Trade  began  to  slip  from  their  grasp.  The 
revenue  they  paid  from  their  profits  to  the  King's 

1  In   1442   the  merchants  of  the  Staple  of  Calais  begged  that 
payment  should  be  made  to  the  soldiers  for  the  surety  of  the 
merchants'  wools.     (Proceedings  of  Privy  Council,  v.  215,  216.) 
When  the  lords  seized  Calais  in  1459,  "  they  shifted  with  the 
Staple  of    Calais  for  £18,000  "  to  carry  on  the  war  with.     After 
Edward's  accession,  in   1462,  the  merchants  claimed  repayment. 
Edward  refused,   and  after  long  efforts  the  merchant   who  re- 
presented them  and  had  borne  the  chief  charges   died  a  ruined 
man  in  sanctuary  at  Westminster  (Fabyan,  635,  652-3). 

2  A  sack  was  364  Ibs.  of  16  oz.  each  (Schaiiz,  ii.  569). 


ii  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  51 

Exchequer  fell  in  the  few  years  from  1391  to  1411  to 
one-fifth  of  its  former  value,1  and  was  still  calculated 
at  this  melancholy  fifth  in  1449.  Instead  of  the 
thirty  thousand  sacks  which  they  yearly  counted  in 
the  fourteenth  century,  they  could  not  at  the  close  of 
the  fifteenth  century  collect  more  than  8,624  sacks, 
and  in  the  last  year  of  Henry  the  Eighth  even  this 
number  had  shrunk  to  under  5,000.2  Taxes  which 
lay  comparatively  lightly  on  them  in  happy  days,  fell 
as  an  intolerable  burden  when  their  warehouses  lay 
empty,  and  their  ranks  were  thinned  by  bankruptcy 
and  desertion.3  At  the  very  moment  when  all 
England  was  being  rapidly  turned  into  a  land  of  sheep 
pastures  for  the  endless  production  of  wool,  the  great 
company  of  the  wool  traders  was  finally  and  irrevoc- 
ably ruined. 

The  wool,  in  fact,  was  being  sold  at  home,  and  out 
of  the  ruin  of  the  merchants  of  the  Staple  the  cloth - 
makers  sucked  no  small  advantage.  For  the  great 
revolution  in  trade  was  rapidly  being  completed — the 
revolution  by  which  England  was  turned  from  being 
a  country  whose  chief  business  was  exporting  wool  into  ^ 
a  country  whose  chief  business  was  exporting  cloth.4 

1  Stubbs,  iii.  69,  Stab.  27,  H.  YI.  c.  2. 

2  Schanz,  ii.  15. 

3  Under  the  system  of  paying  a  fixed  sum  in  good  and  bad 
years    alike  the  poor  merchants  became  bankrupt,  and   in  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  number  of  wool  exporters  fell 
enormously  (Schanz,  ii.  17).    An  extremely  interesting  statement 
by  the  Staplers  of  the  causes  of  their  decay  is  given  by  Schanz 
in  vol.  ii.  565-9. 

4  In  the  years  from  1485  to  1546  general  trade  had  increased 
by  one-third,  while  the  wool  trade  had  decreased  by  one-third 
(Schanz,  ii.  12). 

E   2 


52  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

The  people  had  indeed  long  manufactured  rough  cloth 
for  common  use.1  But  during  the  reigns  of  the  three 
Edwards  the  idea  had  constantly  gained  ground  that 
by  working  up  their  own  raw  material 2  Englishmen 
might  easily  retain  for  themselves  the  profits  which 
foreigners  had  till  now  secured,  and  manufacturers 
were  undoubtedly  doing  a  considerable  export  trade 
in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century.3  Half  a 
century  later,  in  1411,  the  very  year  when  the 
subsidy  on  wool  fell  to  a  fifth,  broad-cloths  are  first 
mentioned  in  an  Act  of  Parliament;  and  from  this 
time  they  became  the  chief  cloths  of  trade.  As  though 
they  had  been  for  a  while  half  forgotten  by  the 
Exchequer,  the  exporters  of  cloth  found  themselves 
free  from  all  subsidy  tax  and  only  obliged  to  pay  to 
the  indifferent  authorities  tolls  that  amounted  to  less 
than  two  per  cent,  for  natives  and  merchants  of  the 
Hanse  occupied  in  the  trade,  and  less  than  eight  per 
cent,  for  aliens ;  and  complacently  measured  this  sum 
with  the  tolls  of  the  Staplers — the  thirty-three  per 
cent,  paid  by  merchants  of  the  Staple,  or  seventy  per 
cent,  by  all  other  traders,4  a  tax  which  perhaps  explains 
why  in  1424  Parliament  had  to  forbid  the  carrying  of 

1  In  the  Paston  Letters  there  is  even  in  the  fifteenth  century 
complaint  of  the  quality  of  Norfolk  cloth,  i.  83. 

2  Ashley's    Woollen  Industry,  39,  afterwards  expanded  in  his 
Economic  History,  part  ii.,  chap.  iii.     This  book   was  published 
after    these    pages    had    been    printed.     Riley's    Mem.    London, 
149-50  ;  Schanz,  i.  436-440,  588-9. 

3  The  first  charter  to  the   company  of  drapers  or   dealers  in 
cloth  in  London  was  in  1364. 

4  This  statement   is  made   by  Schanz,  i.  441,  and   his  reasons 
are  given,  ii.  1-7.   31  H.  VI.  c.  8. 


ii  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  53 

sheep  over  sea  to  shear  them  there.  The  manu- 
facturers, too,  made  alliance  with  the  discontented 
wool-growers.  A  farmer  who  could  sell  his  wool  next 
door,  did  not  trouble  to  send  it  with  vexatious 
formalities  over  sea  to  Calais  ;  and  in  course  of  time 
the  cloth  merchants  insisted  upon  laws  which  gave  to 
them  during  certain  seasons  the  first  choice  of  the  wool 
before  the  staplers  were  even  allowed  to  enter  the 
market.1 

Under  these  circumstances  trade  grew  apace.  Car- 
racks  of  Genoa  carried  English  cloths  to  the  shores  of 
the  Black  Sea  ;  galleys  of  Venice  fetched  them  to  the 
pits  of  the  Venetian  dyers ;  merchants  of  the  Han- 
seatic  League  sold  them  in  the  fair  of  Novgorod ; 
English  traders  travelled  with  them  to  the  inland 
markets  of  Prussia,  and  gave  them  in  exchange  for 
casks  of  herrings  in  Denmark.  At  the  close  of  the 
century  the  English  Merchant  Adventurers  exported 
about  60,000  pieces  of  cloth  yearly ;  and  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  sixteenth  century  the  cloth  dealers 
boasted  that  never  before  in  the  memory  of  man  was 
so  much  cloth  sold  out  of  England.  The  60,000  bales 
rose  in  1509  to  84,789  pieces,  and  in  1547  to 
122,354  ;2  and  the  dealers  claimed  further  gratitude 
and  admiration  of  their  country  for  the  fact  that 
they  had  "by  their  industry "  raised  by  a  fifth  the 
price  demanded  from  the  foreigner.3  Meanwhile  the 
manufacturer  was  also  getting  hold  of  the  home  mar- 
ket, as  the  great  religious  corporations  and  landowners 

1  4  H.  VII.  c.  11  ;  Schanz,  i.  449. 

2  Schanz,  i.  11  ;  ii.  17,  18. 

3  Schanz,  ii.  571-2. 


54  TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

who  had  once  provided  on  their  own  estates  for  all 
local  wants  recognized  the  new  condition  of  things, 
and  instead  of  making  cloth  at  home  as  of  old,  sent 
every  year  far  and  wide  across  the  country  to  the 
great  clothing  centres  to  buy  material  for  the  house- 
hold liveries,1  seeking  from  one  place  the  coarse  striped 
cloth  of  the  old  pattern  and  from  another  the 
goods  of  the  new  fashion.  The  fine  black  copes  of 
worsted  were  favourite  gifts  of  benefactors  to 
churches,  and  a  patriotic  Norfolk  gentleman,  after 
seeing  a  "  tippet  of  fine  worsted  which  is  almost  like 
silk,"  decided  to  "  make  his  doublet  all  worsted  for 
worship  of  Norfolk."2 

Nor  was  the  growth  of  manufacturing  enterprise 
confined  to  the  making  of  cloth.  For  a  couple  of  cen- 
turies the  iron  trade  had  made  of  the  Weald  the  Black 
Country  of  those  days,  and  had  stirred  the  Forest  of 
Dean  with  the  din  of  its  seventy-two  moveable  forges  ; 
and  now,  what  with  the  metals  and  what  with  the  coal 
of  the  country,  "  the  merchants  of  England  maintain 
and  say  that  the  kingdom  is  of  greater  value  under 

1  In  1472  the  prior  of  Christ  Church,  Canterbury,  buys  from  a 
London  alderman  two  pieces  of  cloth  for  gentleman's  livery,  nine 
for  yeoman's,  and  five  for   groom's,  the  price,   £39    14s.  ;  from 
a  "  rayrnaker  "  in  New  Salisbury  he   buys   similar  cloths  in  1475 
and  1480  ;  again  from  Hadley,  in  1499,  he  got  eighteen  pieces, 
and  russet  cloths  from  a  Cranbrooke  clothier.    (Hist.  MSS.  Com. 
v.  436-7,  459.)     Fastolfe  bought  cloth  for  his  soldiers  at  Castle- 
coombe,  Wilts  (Paston  Letters).    The  Warden  of  Merton,  Bishop 
Fitz   James,   bought    for  his    fellows    and    himself    at    Norton 
Mandeville    in    Essex.     (Rogers'     Economic    Interpretation    of 
History,  151.) 

2  Paston  Letters,  ii.  235.   1465. 


ii  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  65 

the  land  than  it  is  above."  l  In  the  reign  of  Edward 
the  Fourth  when  there  was  a  riot  among  the  Mendip 
miners,  and  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  went  down  to  "  set 
a  concord  and  peace  upon  the  forest  of  Mendip,"  it  is 
said  ten  thousand  people  appeared  before  him  at  the 
place  of  trial.2  But  for  all  this  miners  could  no  longer 
keep  pace  with  the  demands  of  the  country,  now  that 
new  industries  on  all  sides  required  metal  that  had 
once  gone  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  farmer  only ;  and 
though  stores  were  brought  from  Sweden  and  Spain, 
the  price  of  iron  increased  to  double  what  it  had  been 
before  the  Plague.3  Shipbuilders  at  the  end  of  the 
fourteenth  century  were  fitting  out  vessels  for  foreign 
as  well  as  for  English  buyers.  English  gunsmiths 
began  to  send  out  of  their  workshops  brazen  guns  and 
bombards  superior  to  anything  made  in  France,  and 
which  were  said  to  have  given  England  its  success 
in  the  French  war  under  Henry  the  Fifth.4  A  number 
of  towns,  big  and  little,  boasted  of  their  bell-foundries, 


1  Debate  between  the  Heralds  of  France  and  England,  probably 
published  from  1458  to  1461,  translated  by  Pyne,  p.  61.     Pub- 
lished in  French  by  the  Societe  des  Anciens  Textes  Francais.     In 
1454   the   commons   petitioned  that  silver  mines  in  Cornwall, 
Devon,  Dorset,  and  Somerset,  should  be  worked  (Schanz,  i.  493). 
For  coal  see  Paston,  iii.  363.     Nottingham  Records,  i.  145.     In 
1307  there  were  complaints  about  the  corruption  of  London  air 
by  use  of  coal.     Cruden's  Gravesend,  84-5. 

2  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  vi.  347. 

'A  Rogers'  Econ.  Interpretation,  276. 

4  Brazen  pieces,  invented  1340  or  1370,  were  first  used  in 
England  at  the  siege  of  Berwick,  1405  (Eng.  Chron.  1377-1461,  p. 
184)  ;  not  known  in  France  so  well  (Three  books  of  Polydore 
Vergil's  English  History,  9-10  Camden  Society).  For  the  Lydd 


56  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

as  for  example  London,  Salisbury,  Norwich,  Gloucester, 
Bridport,  and  others.1  The  copper- workers  of  Dinant 
had  traded  with  England  since  the  thirteenth 
century,  and  in  the  fourteenth  century  had  an 
entrepot  at  Blackwall ;  but  in  1455  the  founders 
set  up  their  industry  in  England,  stealing  away 
secretly  from  Dinant  to  profit  by  the  cheaper 
labour  and  ready  sale  in  this  country.2  Flemish  ex- 
perts taught  to  Englishmen  the  art  of  brickmaking, 
and  native  builders  were  setting  up  throughout  the 
country  the  first  brick  houses  that  had  been  seen  in  it 
since  the  departure  of  the  Eomans.3  A  whole  series 
of  industrial  experiments  proclaimed  the  enthusiasm 
with  which  the  people  accepted  the  challenge  to  secure 
for  themselves  the  profits  of  foreign  manufacturers. 
Artificers  often  more  ambitious  than  skilful  tried  to 
establish  a  native  industry  of  glass  painting.4  Instead 
of  fetching  from  abroad  carpets  and  the  tapestry  used 

gun  of  1456  the  gunmakers  were  paid  lls.  8d. ;  the  binding  and 
iron  for  it  cost  18s.  "Guns  with  six  chambers  "  mentioned  as 
early  as  1456  in  Cinque  Port  towns.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  xvii.) 

1  Journ.  of  Archsel.   Association,   1871,  p.  416;  Hist.  MSS. 
Com.  vi.  489. 

2  Pirenne,  Dinant,  102,  94,  95.     In  the  fifteenth  century  the 
Dinant  traders  sent  their  wares  by  Antwerp,  not  by  Damme. 

3  For  English  brick  building  see  Rogers'  Agric.   and    Prices, 
iv.  440.     First  notice  of  bricks  at  Cambridge  1449,  in  London 
1453,  in  Oxford  1461  ;  common  in  eastern  counties  before  end  of 
fifteenth  century.     Ibid.  iii.  432,  433.     The  proverb,  "  as  red  as 
Rotherham  College,"  refers  to  one  of  the  first  brick  buildings  in 
Yorkshire. 

4  There  is  good  fifteenth  century  English  glass  at  Malvern  and 
elsewhere.    But  according  to  Dugdale  English  glass  was  forbidden 
in  the  Beauchamp  chapel  at  Warwick. 


ii  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  57 

for  churches,  manufactories  were  set  up  at  Eamsey,1 
whence  came  perhaps  also  some  of  the  "  counterfeit 
Arras  "  which  adorned  the  humbler  tradesmen's  homes. 
Frames  "  ordained  and  made  for  the  making  of  silk" 
were  at  work ;  2  lace-makers  and  ribbon  weavers  begged 
the  protection  of  the  government ;  and  English  workers 
sent  into  the  market  large  quantities  of  the  linen  called 
Holland  from  its  first  home.  The  export  of  raw 
material  fell  altogether  out  of  fashion.  Traders  no 
longer  carried  skins  over  sea  undressed  to  be  prepared 
by  foreign  labour,  but  had  the  work  done  by  English 
artizans  at  home.  And  whereas  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fifteenth  century  merchants  brought  beer  from  Prussia 
to  England,  at  its  close  they  were  carrying  beer  from 
London  to  Flanders.3 

What  with  the  inland  and  the  outland  trade,  riches 
gathered  into  the  hands  of  the  merchants  with  be- 
wildering rapidity,  and  with  results  which  alarmed 

1  Turner's  Domestic  Architecture,  98. 

-  Silk  manufacture  in  London  in  the  fifteenth  century  was 
carried  on  by  women  ;  their  complaints  of  the  Lombard  merchants 
noticed  in  Act  of  1454  (33  H.  VL  c.  5).  A  bill  with  the  royal 
sign  manual  prays  that  the  king  would  grant  to  Dom.  Robert 
Essex  his  frames  "  ordeignecl  and  made  for  the  makyngof  sylkes," 
with  their  instruments  which  now  "  stondith  unoccupyed  within 
your  Monastery  of  Westminster,"  and  he  will  ordain  workmen 
to  use  them.  Temp.  Edward  the  Fourth,  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iv.  1, 
177. 

3  Libel  of  English  Policy.  (Political  Poems  and  Songs,  com- 
posed between  1327  and  1483,  ii.  ed.  Wright  Rolls  Series.) 
For  export  of  English  beer  to  Flanders,  see  Foedera,  xii.  471 
1492.  Beer  was  a  "  malt  liquor  flavoured  with  bitter  herbs,"  as 
distinct  from  ale,  made  before  1445,  though  commonly  ascribed  to 
a  century  later. 


58  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

good  conservatives.  A  statute  of  Parliament  passed 
in  1455  lamented  the  good  old  days  when  Norfolk  and 
Norwich  used  to  employ  only  six  or  eight  attorneys 
at  the  King's  Court,  "  in  which  time  great  tranquillity 
reigned  in  the  said  city  and  counties."  This  "  tran- 
quillity "  was  broken  by  the  manufacturing  and  export 
trade,  for  now  a  body  of  eighty  or  more  lawyers  busily 
frequented  every  fair  and  market  and  assembly,  mov- 
ing and  inciting  people  to  lawsuits,  and  while  having 
nothing  to  live  on  but  their  attorneyship  yet  pros- 
pered so  well  that  a  wise  legislature  had  to  order  that 
Norfolk  should  henceforth  as  of  old  have  only  six 
attorneys  and  Norwich  two.1  Nor  does  it  seem  that 
Norwich  was  exceptionally  wicked,  even  though  in 
Piers  Ploughman  Covetousness  is  represented  with  a 
"Norfolk  nose,"2  for  about  the  same  time  we  read  in 
Nottingham  of  twenty-four  rolls  written  within  and 
without  with  the  pleas  concerning  trading  questions  of 
a  single  year.  The  whole  country  in  fact  shared  in 
traders'  profits  from  king  to  peasant.  It  is  calculated 
that  in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth  English  exports 
so  far  exceeded  imports  as  to  bring  about  £50,000 
yearly  into  the  country,  and  the  balance  of  trade 
inclined  yet  more  strongly  in  favour  of  England  under 
Henry  the  Seventh.3  Not  only  did  the  king  lay  up 
vast  treasure,  but  the  very  goldsmiths'  shops  in 
London  were  reported  by  a  foreign  traveller  to  contain 
more  precious  metals  than  all  those  of  Kome,  Milan, 


1  Blomfield,  iii.  160.     33  H.  VI.  cap.  vii. 

2  Piers  Ploughman,  Introduction  to  Text  C,  xxxi. 

3  Schanz,  ii.  35,  36. 


ii  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  59 

Florence,  and  Venice  taken  together.1  So  far  as  the 
middle  class  is  concerned  evidence  of  accumulating 
wealth  is  to  be  found  on  every  side,  and  the  masses  of 
the  people  in  spite  of  the  drain  of  war  taxation  shared  in 
the  general  prosperity.  In  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century  Chief  Justice  Fortescue  contrasts  their  state 
with  that  of  the  French  commons.  "  These  drink 
water  ;  they  eat  apples  with  bre  ad  right  brown  made  of 
rye.  They  eat  no  flesh,  b  ut  if  it  be  right  seldom  a  little 
lard,  or  of  the  entrails  and  heads  of  beasts  slain  for 
the  nobles  and  merchants  of  the  land.  They  wear  no 
woollen  but  if  it  be  a  poor  coat  under  their  outermost 
garment  made  of  great  canvas  and  called  a  frock. 
Their  hosen  be  of  light  canvas  and  pass  not  their  knee, 
wherefore  they  be  gartered  and  their  thighs  bare. 
Their  wives  and  children  go  barefoot ;  they  may  in 
none  otherwise  live.  .  .  .  Their  nature  is  wasted  and 
the  kind  of  them  brought  to  nought.  They  go  crooked 
and  be  feeble,  not  able  to  fight  nor  to  defend  the  realm  ; 
nor  they  have  weapon  nor  money  to  buy  them  weapon 
withal.  .  .  .  But  blessed  be  God,  this  land  is  ruled 
under  a  better  law  ;  and  therefore  the  people  thereof  be 
not  in  such  penury,  nor  thereby  hurt  in  their  persons 
but  they  be  wealthy  and  have  all  things  necessary  to 
the  sustenance  of  nature."  "  In  France  the  people 
salt  but  little  meat  except  their  bacon,  for  they  would 
buy  little  salt "  unless  the  king's  officers  went  round 
and  forced  every  household  to  take  a  certain  measure, 
such  as  they  thought  reasonable.  But  "  this  rule 
would  be  sore  abhorred  in  England,  as  well  by  the 

1  Italian    Relation,  42-3    (Camden  Soc.) ;    Schanz,    i.    513 ; 
Heralds'  Debate,  65. 


60  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

merchants  that  be  wont  to  have  their  freedom  in 
buying  and  selling  of  salt  as  by  the  people  that  use 
much  to  salt  their  meats."  1 

An  industrial  revolution  on  such  a  scale  as  this 
brought  a  political  revolution  in  its  train.  The  Eng- 
lish population,  says  a  writer  of  about  1453,  "consists 
of  churchmen,  nobles,  and  craftsmen,  as  well  as  common 
people."  It  was  a  novel  and  significant  division. 
Traders  and  manufacturers  took  their  places  somewhat 
noisily  beside  their  fellow  politicians  of  older  stand- 
ing, filling  the  whole  land  till  it  seems  for  a  moment 
as  if  nothing  counted  any  more  in  English  life  save  its 
middle  class — a  busy,  hard,  prosperous,  pugnacious 
middle-class.  Slowly  emerging  from  its  early  obscurity, 
in  this  century  it  had  arrived  at  power  definitely,  osten- 
tatiously, carrying  a  proud  look  and  a  high  stomach, 
intent  on  its  own  affairs,  heedless  of  the  Court,  re- 
gardless of  ministers  save  when  it  had  to  bribe  them, 
irreverent  to  the  noble,  the  "  proud  penniless  with  his 
painted  sleeve,"  3  tolerant  of  ecclesiastics  and  monks 
only  so  long  as  they  could  be  kept  rigidly  within 
their  allotted  religious  functions.4  Henceforth  in  the 

1  Plummer's  Fortescue,  114-5,  132.     Compare  Bacon's  Henry 
the  Seventh,  71-72. 

-  Heralds'  Debate,  61,  1453-1461. 

3  Richard  the  Redeless,  passus  iii.  172. 

4  Brinklow's  Tracts,  published  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  afford   interesting  illustrations   of    the   type  of  radical 
politician  formed  in  the  towns.      His  proposal  for  a  single  chamber 
and  the  list  of   reforms   sketched   out    are   not    more   significant 
than  his  criticism  of  parliamentary  despotism  and  inefficiency, 
"  This  is  the  thirteenth  article  of  our  creed  added  of  late,  that 
whatsoever    the  Parliament     doth    must    needs    be   well    done. 


ii  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  61 

workshop  and  the  market-place  home  politics  and 
foreign  affairs  were  discussed  from  a  new  point  of 
view — the  interest  of  the  trader  and  the  manufac- 
turer ;  and  the  middle  and  working  classes  presently 
began  to  fling  to  the  winds  the  old  state-craft  whose 
maxims  had  done  service  before  their  advent  among 
the  makers  of  the  national  policy. 

In  the  matter  of  our  foreign  relations  we  see  the 
drift  of  public  thought  and  discussion  reflected  in  a 
pamphlet  by  which  one  of  the  King's  ministers, 
Moleyns,  Bishop  of  Chichester,  sought  to  appeal  to  the 
popular  imagination  and  define  our  right  attitude 
to  continental  peoples.  His  Libel  (or  Little  Book)  of 
English  Policy,  published  about  1445,  was  clearly 
designed  for  the  vulgar  use.1  Written,  as  the  common 
taste  of  the  day  demanded,  in  rhyming  form  where  the 
absence  of  poetic  art  and  the  inspiration  of  a  plain 
common-sense  constituted  a  double  claim  on  public 
attention,  it  made  its  frank  appeal  to  the  prejudice  of 
the  stall-holder  in  the  market  and  of  the  craftsman  who 
lived  by  making  his  homely  English  wares — men  who 
saw  in  foreign  products  articles  whose  sinful  extrava- 
gance could  only  be  matched  by  the  worthlessness 

and  the  Parliament,  or  any  proclamation  out  of  the  parlia- 
ment time  cannot  err  ....  then  have  ye  brought  Rome  home 
to  your  own  doors  and  given  the  authority  to  the  King  and 
Parliament  that  the  cardinal  bishops  gave  unto  the  Pope  ....  if 
this  be  so,  it  is  all  vain  to  look  for  any  amendment  of  anything." 
Brinklow's  Complaynt,  E.  E.  Text  Society,  35.  See  also  pp.  8,  12. 
1  Libel  of  English  Policy  (Political  Poems  and  Songs,  ii. 
157-205.  Roll's  series,  ed.  Wright).  The  Libel  was  probably 
written  after  1436.  The  Bishop  was  murdered  in  1450.  (Agric. 
and  Prices,  iv.  533.) 


62  TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUEY       CHAP. 

that  distinguished  all  work  not  turned  out  by  an 
Englishman.  "With  vigorous  strokes  the  Bishop 
sketched  the  outlines  of  England's  trading  interests 
with  every  nation  in  Europe,  and  at  the  end  of  each 
paragraph  passionately  drove  home  his  moral.  Laying 
hold  of  the  fundamental  axiom  that  the  sole  and 
undivided  concern  of  England  in  all  her  foreign 
relations  was  the  protection  of  her  commerce,  he 
maintained  that  so  long  as  she  kept  a  firm  hold  on 
the  narrow  seas  between  Dover  and  Calais,  she  might 
rule  the  trade  of  the  world.  For  there  all  commerce 
from  north  to  south  or  south  to  north  had  to 
pass  through  the  strait  gate  held  by  her  sentinels  on 
either  side ;  so  that  while  an  inexorable  fate  drove  the 
nations  into  her  net,  England  safely  hidden  behind 
her  wall  of  defence,  the  stormy  Channel,  need  have 
no  care  so  long  as  she  looked  well  to  her  navy  and 
kept  it  swift  to  seize  her  prey  and  strong  to  drive  her 
enemies  back  from  looking  over  the  wall.  At  its  very 
outset  the  commercial  society  had  thus  its  Cobden  to 
preach  after  his  kind  the  doctrine  of  non-intervention 
and  the  kingdom  of  the  seas. 

The  exponents  of  a  new  home  policy  pressed  hard 
on  the  heels  of  the  founders  of  a  new  diplomacy. 
About  thirty  years  after  the  Libel  of  English  Policy, 
another  '"'Libel"  was  composed  in  imitation  of  the 
first  tract.1  Less  pretentious  and  elaborate  than  the 
first,  the  new  poem  was  probably  the  work  of  some 
person  of  less  exalted  rank,  whose  converse  had  been 
with  the  working  men  of  the  country  rather  than  with 
merchants  of  London  or  peers  of  the  realm  and  minis- 
1  Wriffht's  Pol.  Poems,  ii.  282-7.  Schanz,  i.  446. 


n  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  63 

ters  of  the  King,  and  who  was  far  more  troubled  about 
our  industrial  policy  at  home  than  our  commercial 
policy  abroad.  His  view  of  our  position  was  also 
finely  optimistic.  For,  seeing  that  foreign  traders 
were  bound,  whether  they  would  or  no,  to  come  to 
us  either  for  wool  or  for  cloth,  and  thus  depended 
on  England  for  one  of  the  first  necessaries  of  life,  we, 
who  were  put  in  this  happy  position  of  universal 
provider,  were  clearly  "  by  God's  ordinance,"  destined 
first  to  satisfy  ourselves,  and  then  "  to  rule  and  govern 
all  Christian  kings,"  and  make  paynims  also  "  full 
tame  "  ; l  and  so  "  of  all  people  that  be  living  on  the 
ground  "  were  most  bound  to  pray  and  to  please  God. 
The  recognition  of  these  inestimable  blessings  should 
bring  of  course  its  corresponding  sense  of  our  duty  to 
sell  our  goods  as  dear  as  we  could ;  to  "  restrain  strait- 
ly  "  the  export  of  wool  so  that  "  the  commons  of  this 
land  might  have  work  to  the  full  "  ;  2  and  in  any  case  to 
export  only  the  coarsest  wool,  on  the  working  of  which 
the  margin  of  profit  must  be  small — but  a  fifth  in 
fact  of  what  might  be  made  on  good  material.  "  The 
price  is  simple,  the  cost  is  never  the  less ;  they  that 
worked  such  wool  in  wit  be  like  an  ass."  Above  all, 
the  working  men  must  be  protected  by  law  in  the 
conditions  of  their  labour,  so  that  "  their  poor  living 
and  adversity  might  be  altered  into  wealth,  riches, 

1  Compare   the  very  similar  expression  of  faith  in  a  modern 
labour  paper.      "  To  this  island,  small  as  it  is,  has  been  given  the 
work  of  leading  the  industrial  organization  of  the  world ;  that  is 
to  say,   of  governing   and  ordering  the  affairs   of  the  world." 
Trade  Unionist,  Dec.  26,  1891. 

2  Compare  Paston  Letters,  i.  531  ;   Brinklow's  Complaynt  11. 


64  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

and  prosperity,"  and  that  for  the  profit  of  the  whole 
realm.  The  growth  of  industry  was  already  bringing 
in  its  train  a  modern  theory  that  "  the  whole 
wealth  of  the  body  of  the  realm  riseth  out  of  the 
labours  and  works  of  the  common  people.  .  .  .  Surely 
the  common  weal  of  England  must  rise  out  of  the 
works  of  the  common  people."1 

From  this  time  therefore  the  policy  of  England 
was  to  be  the  policy  of  a  great  industrial  state. 
But  the  new  way  on  which  its  people  were  thus  striv- 
ing to  enter  was  not  to  be  a  way  of  good- will  at  home 
or  of  harmony  with  the  nations.  Merchant  and 
burgher  might  remain,  as  they  did,  absolutely  indif- 
ferent to  all  schemes  of  mere  military  aggrandizement 2 
such  as  the  conquest  of  France,  so  that  after  the  tak- 
ing of  Bordeaux  by  the  French  in  1445  not  a  single 
cry  was  raised  for  the  recovery  of  our  lost  possessions  ; 
and  they  might  rather  look  for  the  extension  of  their 

1  Pauli,  Drei  volkswirtschaftliche  Denkschriften,  s.  61,  75. 

2  In  1447  exactions  in  England   were  so  heavy  "as  that  the 
minds  of  men  were  not  set  upon  foreign  war,  but   vexed  above 
measure  how  to  repel  private  and   domestical  injuries,  and  that 
therefore   neither  pay  for  the  soldier   nor  supply  for  the  army 
were  as  need  required  put  in  readiness."     (Polydore  Vergil,  77 
Camden   Soc.)      For  interruption  of  trade  by  the  war,  Paston,  i. 
425-6.     Davies'   Southampton,   252-3.     The    Staplers  complain 
that   before  the  war  the  French  bought  yearly  2,000   sacks  of 
wool,  now  only  400  (Schanz,  ii.  568).     For  effect  of  the  war  on 
the  salt  trade,  Rogers'  Econ.  Interpretation  of  History,  100.     For 
the  wine  trade,  &c.,  Schanz,  i.  299-300,  643-50.     "It  cannot  be 
brought  to  pass   by  any  mean  that  a   French   man    born   will 
much  love  an  English   man,  or,  contrary,  that  an  English  will 
love  a  French  man  ;  such  is  the  hatred  that  hath  sprung  of  con- 
tention for  honour  and  empire."     (Pol.  Vergil,  82.) 


n  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  65 

trade  to  the  bold  enterprising  genius  of  trading 
companies  and  pirates  exulting  in  freedom  from 
royal  interference  and  military  restrictions,  and  only 
calling  on  the  State  for  diplomatic  aid  in  the  case 
where  this  proved  convenient  for  the  winning  of 
a  commercial  treaty.  But  the  secret  of  peace  was 
not  yet  found,  nor  was  the  settlement  of  industrial 
frontiers  to  prove  simpler  than  the  definition  of 
military  borders. 

For  as  yet  England  had  wakened  no  jealousies 
simply  because  she  had  never  been  a  competitor  with 
other  nations ;  but  obvious  trouble  lay  in  wait  for  her 
people  so  soon  as  they  were  fairly  swept  into  the  com- 
mercial struggle  of  the  Continent,  and  introduced 
by  their  manufactures  to  their  first  real  trade  disputes. 
The  weaver  of  the  Netherlands,  for  example,  had 
gladly  welcomed  the  English  trader  as  the  inexhaust- 
ible provider  of  his  raw  material ;  but  it  was  another 
matter  when  the  Englishman  came  as  a  rival  manu- 
facturer laden  with  bales  of  cloth,  grudging  the  old 
supply  of  wool,  and  setting  up  stalls  in  Flemish  markets 
to  seduce  away  his  ancient  customers.  The  Flemish 
towns  had  seen  an  end  to  their  prosperity,  and  towns 
in  such  a  case  were  bitter  in  negotiations  with  their 
rivals.1  Bruges  which  in  the  thirteenth  century 
had  40,000  looms,  was  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
century  offering  citizenship  at  a  mere  trifle  to  draw 
back  inhabitants  to  its  deserted  streets ;  Ypres,  which 
in  1408  had  a  population  of  from  80,000  to  100,000, 
and  from  3,000  to  4,000  cloth-workers,  had  in  1486 
only  from  5,000  to  6,000  inhabitants,  and  twenty- 

1  Schanz,  i.  32-33. 
VOL.   I  F 


66  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

five  to  thirty  cloth-factories ;  and  in  Ghent  matters 
were  little  better.  Against  all  the  misery  of  a  cen- 
tury of  slow  death  in  Flanders — a  misery  on  which 
the  English  weaver  throve  and  fattened — the  doomed 

o 

manufacturers  set  up  hasty  barriers  on  this  side  and  on 
that,  taxes  and  tolls  and  municipal  ordinances  and 
State  decrees  to  shut  English  cloth  out  of  Flanders, 
which  were  met  by  angry  English  rejoinders  forbid- 
ding Flemish  cloth  in  the  English  markets.  Similar 
difficulties  followed  everywhere  the  appearance  of  the 
English  trader  with  his  goods.  The  Hanseatic  League 
drove  him  out  of  Denmark,  and  the  Teutonic  Order 
banished  him  from  Prussia.  Moreover  while  disputes 
of  manufacturers  kept  the  North  in  a  tumult,  com- 
mercial quarrels  disturbed  the  South,  and  English 
merchant  vessels  met  the  Genoese  or  the  Venetians  in 
the  seas  of  the  Levant  to  fight  for  the  carrying  trade 
of  the  Mediterranean.  No  limit  was  set  to  the  pirate 
wars  that  raged  from  Syria  to  Iceland  till  a  great 
statesman,  Henry  the  Seventh,  made  his  splendid 
attempt  to  discover  through  international  treaties 
the  means  of  securing  a  settled  order  for  the  new 
commercial  state. 

Nor  was  the  question  of  home  politics  more  easy  of 
solution.  Under  the  steady  pressure  of  public  feeling 
the  government  was  gradually  forced  out  of  the  early 
simplicity  of  its  view  of  regulating  commerce  as  a 
financial  expedient  in  aid  of  the]  Treasury,  and  began 
to  concern  itself  anxiously  about  the  protection  of 
industry  in  the  interests  of  the  community.  Cloth 
manufacturers  in  particular  entered  on  a  period 
of  protected  security  such  as  the  Staplers  had 


ii  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  67 

never  known,  when  kings  became  the  nursing  fathers 
of  their  trade,  and  its  prosperity  was  considered 
an  absorbing  charge  to  the  government.  But  when 
Parliament  began  in  1463  (almost  the  very  year  in 
which  the  second  "  Libel"  appeared)  to  concern  itself 
very  actively  with  industrial  problems,1  the  question  of 
trade  legislation  had  already  become  extremely  com- 
plex and  difficult.  As  soon  as  the  village  weaver 
began  to  make  cloth  for  the  Prussian  burgher  or  the 
trader  of  the  Black  Sea  instead  of  for  his  next  door 
neighbour,  the  old  conditions  of  his  trade  became 
absolutely  impossible.  The  whole  industry  was  before 
long  altogether  re-organized  both  from  the  commercial 
and  the  manufacturing  side.  The  exporting  mer- 
chants, as  we  shall  see  later,  drew  together  into  a  new 
and  powerful  association  known  as  the  Merchant  Ad- 
venturers. Meanwhile  the  army  of  workmen  at  home 
was  broken  up  into  specialized  groups  of  spinners, 
weavers,  carders,  fullers,  shearers,  and  dyers.  The 
seller  was  more  and  more  sharply  separated  from  the 
maker  of  goods.  Managers  and  middlemen  organized 
the  manufacture  and  made  provisions  for  its  distribution 
and  sale.  The  clothier  provided  the  raw  material,  gave 
out  the  wool  to  be  made  up,  and  sold  again  to  the 
draper.2  And  the  draper  "lived  like  a  gentleman," 
and  sold  to  the  big  public,  despising  the  lower  forms 
of  trade.  Old-fashioned  economists  and  timid  conser- 
vatives looked  on  aghast  at  the  accelerating  changes, 

1  See  the  series  of  statutes  with  which  the  reign  of  Edward 
the  Fourth  opens.     4,  Ed.  IV.  c.  1-8.     Schanz,  i.  447. 

2  Ashley's   Wool.    Ind.    81-2 ;     expanded    in    his    Economic 
History,  part  ii.     Schanz,  i.  445. 

F   2 


68  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

and  declared  that  the  country  was  being  brought  to 
certain  ruin  by  the  reckless  race  of  its  people  to 
forsake  handicrafts  or  the  production  of  wealth,  and 
press  wholesale  into  the  ranks  of  merchants  or  mere 
distributors. 

With  this  division  of  labour  and  the  quickened 
contest  for  profits,  there  started  into  life  rival  in- 
terests more  than  enough  to  break  up  the  whole 
community  into  groups  of  warring  factions.  The 
"  upper  classes "  generally,  statesmen,  treasury  offi- 
cials, nobles,  the  greater  proprietors  lay  and  eccle- 
siastical— in  fact  all  the  wealthy  owners  of  flocks  who 
could  enter  the  company  of  the  Staplers  and  share 
their  profits — desired  an  abundant  export  of  wool ; 
while  the  small  farmers  and  the  yeomen,  shut  out  by 
poverty  from  the  association,  and  bitterly  hostile  to 
the  wealthy  monopolist,  sided  with  the  townsfolk  to 
whom  visions  of  wealth  had  first  dawned  in  the 
manufacturing  industries  and  the  export  of  cloth, 
and  who  would  gladly  have  kept  all  the  wool  of  the 
country  at  home.1  Merchants  and  manufacturers 
had  their  own  special  controversy,  for  while  the 
foreign  trader  was  boasting  of  his  energy  in  raising 
the  price  of  cloth,  the  middlemen  and  makers  at 
home,  whose  whole  interest  lay  in  rapid  sales,  com- 
plained that  people  in  the  Netherlands  would  no 
longer  buy  English  goods  owing  to  the  increased  cost, 

1  Schanz,  i.  446.  "  The  caryage  out  of  wolle  to  the  Stapul  ys 
a  grete  hurte  to  the  pepul  of  Englond ;  though  hyt  be  profitabul 
both  to  the  prynce  and  to  the  marchant  also."  (Starkey,  England 
in  the  Reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth.  Early  English  Text  Society, 
p.  173.) 


ii  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  69 

and  that  the  English  towns  were  thus  brought  to 
destitution.1  Moreover  the  great  London  merchants 
were  making  a  determined  effort  to  force  the  whole 
foreign  trade  of  England  through  their  warehouses 
in  London,  and  to  shut  all  channels  of  commerce 
save  those  provided  by  themselves  ;2  and  demanded 
that  all  cloth  for  the  Netherlands,  that  is  practi- 
cally one-third  of  all  the  cloth  then  exported,  must 
be  carried  by  the  maker  to  London,  and  there 
sold,  as  was  averred,  to  the  exporting  merchants 
either  for  credit  or  below  cost  price.3  Here  of 
course  they  came  into  conflict  with  the  local  dealers 
who  wanted  frequent  and  convenient  markets  for 
their  wares,  and  liberty  to  make  their  own  bargain 

1  Brinklow's  Complaynt,  E.  E.  Text  Soc.  p.  11.    Schanz,  i.  479, 
note. 

2  The   fellowship  of  the  mercers  and    other    merchants    and 
.adventurers  living  in  London    "  by    confederacy  made    among 
themselves  of  their  uncharitable  and  inordinate  covetous  for  their 
singular  profit  and  lucre  contrary  to  every  Englishman's  liberty, 
and  to  the  liberty  of  the  Mart  there  "  made  an  ordinance  and 
constitution  that  every  Englishman  trading  with  the  marts  of 
Flanders  or  under  the  Archduke  of  Burgundy  should  first  pay  a 
fine  to  the  Merchants'  Fellowship  in  London  on  pain  of  forfeiture 
of  all  their  wares  bought  and  sold.     The  fine  was  at  first  half  an 
old  noble,  and  demanded  by  a  colour  of  a  fraternity  of  S.  Thomas 
at  Canterbury,  and  "so  by  colour  of  such  feigned  holiness  it  hath 
been    suffered   to   be    taken   for   a    few    years   past."      Finally, 
however,  the  London  Fellowship  raised  the  fine  to  £20,  then  the 
other  merchants  began  to  withdraw  from  the  marts  and  the  cloth 
trade  to  suffer.     On  the  complaint  of  the   merchant  adventurers 
living  outside  London  Parliament  ordered  that  the  fine   should 
only  be  ten  marks.    (12  Henry  VII.,  cap.  6.)    For  the  complaint 
of  the  Hull  traders  against  the  merchant  adventurers  of  London 
in  1622  see  Lambert's  Gild  Life,  171-2. 

3  Schanz,  i.  342. 


70  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

with  foreign  buyers  visiting  their  town ;  for  to  the 
clothier  this  question  of  distribution  was  all-import- 
ant, since  it  was  in  vain  for  him  to  increase 
production  by  machinery,  or  by  the  improved 
organization  of  labour,  or  by  division  of  toil  among 
groups  of  skilled  artizans,  unless  he  could  find  his 
profit  in  a  corresponding  developement  of  the  means 
of  sale.  The  exporting  merchants  had  also  a 
quarrel  with  the  artizans,  who  naturally  desired 
to  keep  the  dressing  and  finishing  of  cloth  in  their 
own  hands,  while  the  merchants  insisted  on  the  ad- 
vantages of  a  free  trade  in  undressed  cloth ;  in  their 
judgement  the  cloth-dressers,  seeking  but  their  "sin- 
gular and  private  wealth,"  forgot  that  more  men  lived 
by  making  and  selling  cloth  than  by  dressing  it,  and 
that  therefore  the  rapid  developement  of  exports  by 
carrying  out  material  in  the  rough  to  be  finished  in 
the  Netherlands  was  really  for  the  enriching  of  the 
whole  realm.1  These  same  dealers,  however,  looked 
more  leniently  on  the  "  singular  and  private  wealth  " 
that  went  into  their  own  pockets  through  the  profits 
of  the  export  trade,  and  also  found  themselves  set  at 
variance  with  the  big  public  of  consumers  who  were 
always  anxiously  on  the  watch  against  the  raising  of 
prices.  At  times  the  manufacturer  had  his  grievances 
against  the  municipal  authorities,  whenever  he  found 
himself  worried  and  fettered  by  the  traditional  wisdom 
of  Town  Councils,  who  for  a  variety  of  reasons  of  their 
own  wanted  to  keep  the  ultimate  control  over  his 
trade  so  as  to  draw  a  profit  for  the  town.  Lastly,  the 
working  class  had  begun  to  feel  difficulties  springing 

1  Schanz,  ii.  571. 


ii  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  71 

from  the  new  methods  of  industrial  organization, 
and  troubles  about  wages  and  prices  and  the  relation 
of  employer  to  employed  assailed  the  authorities  both 
at  Westminster  and  in  the  municipal  councils.  Arti- 
ficers of  all  kinds,  it  was  constantly  declared,  could 
no  longer  live  of  their  occupation  and  were  in  great 
misery ; l  in  fact,  to  judge  by  preambles  to  Statutes, 
and  the  loud  complaints  as  to  his  condition,  the  work- 
ing man  believed  himself  to  be  in  such  bad  case  as 
to  need  all  the  aid  of  the  State  to  keep  him  supplied 
with  employment. 

This  old  industrial  revolution  in  short  brought  with 
it  difficulties  which  bear  to  us  the  familiar  look  of  our 
own  constant  and  persevering  visitors — visitors  that 
force  their  entrance  at  every  breach  in  the  accustomed 
order  by  which  trade  is  fenced  round,  and  that  appear 
as  the  unwelcome  escort  of  every  new  form  of  indus- 
trial competition.    Moreover,  to  add  to  the  troubles 
of  the   mediaeval   legislator,  the   consumer  of  those 
days  was  always  insisting  on  his  vested  right  to  the 
first  consideration  of  the  government,  as  the  ultimate 
dictator  for  whose  benefit  the  whole  colossal  structure 
of  trade  had  been  reared,  and   by  whose   approval 
alone   it   was   allowed   to  remain  at  that  ambitious 
elevation.      With  every  fresh  enterprise    of    manu- 
facturer  or   merchant,  the  problem  with  which  the 
law-makers   had   to    deal   became   more    subtle   and 
complex.     Driven   hither   and   thither   by   the   new 
conflict  of   public  opinion  and  the  passion  of  rival 
interests,  baffled   by  the  insoluble  problem   of   how 
to  frame  laws  which  should  benefit  equally  all   the 
1  3  Ed.  IV.  c.  4. 


72  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

claimants  for  its  aid,  the  government  hesitatingly  felt 
its  way  along  an  ill-defined  path,  veering  from  side 
to  side  according  to  the  direction  of  the  last  impel- 
ling force.  Even  Edward  the  Fourth  had  no  fixed 
policy  of  protection,  and  passed  laws  now  on  this  side, 
now  on  that,  as  the  imperious  necessity  of  the  moment 
seemed  to  demand. 

But  with  a  rapidly  increasing  trade,  and  with  a 
House  of  Commons  three-fourths  of  whose  mem- 
bers were  burghers  personally  concerned  in  these 
questions,  it  was  impossible  to  stand  still ;  and 
the  new  industrial  legislation  gradually  became  the 
expression  not  of  the  autocratic  rule  of  kings,  but  of 
a  self-conscious  government  of  the  people.1  A  long 
series  of  Statutes  illustrates  this  great  experiment. 
The  new  protection  devised  by  burghers  and 
merchants  for  the  fostering  of  industry  was 
altogether  different  from  the  old  protection  devised 
by  a  Court  mainly  occupied  with  the  problem  of 
re-filling  an  empty  Treasury.  The  English  manu- 
facturer and  the  English  working  man  were  its  re- 
cognized charge,  and  in  their  interest  no  measure 
was  considered  too  heroic  and  no  detail  too  insig- 
nificant, whether  the  matter  in  hand  was  the  clos- 
ing of  English  markets  to  a  whole  people,  or  the 
decision  of  how  big  a  piece  of  leather  it  might  be 
well  in  the  interest  of  the  shoemaking  trade  to  allow 
the  cobbler  to  buy  for  the  patching  of  an  old  boot. 
All  native  trades  were  "  protected "  by  laws  which 
declared  that  none  of  the  wares  which  Englishmen 
could  manufacture  at  home  might  be  imported  from 
1  Schanz,  i.  618-19. 


ii  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  73 

foreign  parts,  and  that  none  of  the  raw  material  they 
used  might  be  carried  out  unwrought,  or  even  half 
finished,  to  be  worked  up  abroad.  The  whole  people, 
save  a  few  of  the  "  great  estates "  and  mighty  men, 
must  go  simply  clad  in  honest  goods  of  English  make, 
and  so  save  themselves  from  waste,  and  English  work- 
ers from  poverty.  As  to  the  long  dispute  about  ad- 
mitting foreigners  to  trade  in  England,  in  which  the 
King  and  the  people  had  ever  been  in  strong  opposi- 
tion, that  matter  was  now  more  and  more  regulated  ac- 
cording to  the  desires  of  the  traders.  England  ceased 
to  be  the  acquiescent  host  of  guests  who,  in  the 
vulgar  opinion,  came  to  thrive  and  fatten  on  her 
wealth ;  and  a  determined  resistance  was  declared 
against  the  competition  of  strangers,  till  the  Han- 
seatic  trader  scarcely  dared  show  his  face  outside  the 
strong  walls  of  his  Steel-yard  citadel,  and  the  Lombard 
vainly  struggled  to  protect  his  last  privileges  from  the 
assaults  of  his  enemies. 

The  theory  of  State  protection  of  industry  grew  fast, 
and  by  the  time  of  Henry  the  Seventh  its  triumph 
was  complete,  and  the  foundations  of  a  new  national 
policy  were  firmly  laid — a  policy  which  was  to  be 
largely  guided  by  industrial  interests  and  to  represent 
the  claims  of  an  elaborate  industrial  organization 
established  by  law  and  built  into  vast  proportions  by 
international  agreement.  The  new  relation  of  a 
sovereign  to  his  people  in  such  a  State  was  seen 
at  the  end  of  the  century  in  the  first  peaceful 
king  of  England  whose  subjects  had  submitted 
to  his  rule,  the  only  English  monarch  till  then 
who  had  not  been  a  strong  leader  in  war  and 


74  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CH.  n 

who  had  yet  escaped  murder  or  imprisonment  at 
the  hands  of  his  people.  It  has  been  the  singular 
misfortune  of  one  of  our  greatest  rulers,  Henry  the 
Seventh,  to  be  the  first  sovereign  of  the  modern 
pattern  who  ruled  over  Englishmen,  and  his  memory 
has  in  consequence  come  down  to  us  shorn  of  all  the 
conventional  glory  that  tradition  had  until  then 
declared  proper  to  royalty.  He  has  remained  in 
history  as  we  see  him  in  one  of  his  portraits,  a  dim 
obscure  figure,  sadly  looking  out  from  the  background 
of  a  canvas  where  the  big  blustering  figure  of  his  son, 
set  squarely  in  front,  seems  to  elbow  all  virtue  save  his 
own  out  of  recognized  existence.  But  in  the  delicate, 
careworn,  refined  face  with  its  suggestion  of  un- 
recorded self-effacement,  in  the  penetrating  intel- 
ligence devoted  to  the  apprehending  of  the  new 
problems  and  the  infinite  labour  spent  in  solving 
them,  in  the  inscrutable  acquiescence  with  which, 
•'loving  to  seal  up  his  own  dangers,"  he  carried 
the  burdens  that  were  henceforth  to  fall  to  the  lot 
of  kings,  and  the  unflinching  resolution  of  his 
methods,  we  recognize  a  new  type  of  royal  dignity, 
and  measure  the  work  demanded  of  rulers  who  saw 
the  power  of  mere  personal  dominion  founded  on  force 
gradually  passing  from  their  hands,  and  in  the  chang- 
ing order  of  the  world  were  called  to  take  up  the 
leadership  of  the  new  commonwealth  that  was  to  be. 

1  Bacon's  History  of  Henry  the  Seventh,  38. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    COMMERCIAL    REVOLUTION   OF  THE    FIFTEENTH 
CENTURY 

A  FRENCH  proverb  of  the  twelfth  century  tells  us 
what  the  world  thought  in  old  days  of  the  origin  and 
uses  of  a  navy.  "  Point  de  marine  sans  pelerinages," 
men  said,  seeing  in  pious  penitents  its  means  of  sup- 
port, and  in  the  shrines  of  St.  James  or  St.  Peter 
or  the  Holy  Sepulchre  its  destinations.  Trade  in 
those  days  avoided  the  way  of  the  ocean,  and 
followed  the  well-known  land  routes  across  the 
heart  of  Europe,  and  where  the  land  came  to  an  end 
took  the  very  shortest  way  over  the  water  to  the  next 
point  of  solid  earth. 

And  slowly  as  commerce  by  sea  developed  in  Europe 
it  developed  yet  more  slowly  among  the  English.  All 
goods  that  came  to  them  from  abroad  were  carried  to 
their  shores  by  powerful  confederations  of  foreign 
merchants  who  controlled  the  great  continental  trade 
routes  of  the  north-west.  The  "  men  of  the  Empire  " 
or  the  Hanse  of  Cologne,  masters  of  the  highway  of 
the  Rhine  and  of  Cologne,  the  great  seaport  of  the 


76  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

Empire,  commanded  the  whole  Eastern  trade  which 
then  for  the  most  part  passed  through  Germany.1  The 
Flemish  Hanse  of  London,2  which  included  all  the 
great  towns  of  Picardy  and  Flanders,  and  perhaps  at 
one  time  even  Paris  itself,  carried  over  sea  the  wares 
that  were  gathered  from  half  of  Europe  to  the  great 
fairs  of  Champagne.  Through  these  two  great  com- 
panies England  first  exchanged  her  wool  for  certain 
necessaries  such  as  salt  and  fish  and  iron  and  wood, 
and  for  a  few  luxuries  such  as  spices  and  silks  from 
the  Levant. 

And  even  when  commerce  swept  beyond  the  narrow 
seas  and  passed  out  of  the  hands  of  the  men  of  Cologne 
and  the  Flemish  Hanse,  it  was  not  Englishmen  who 
took  their  place.  If  the  waterway  of  the  Ehine  was 
forsaken  of  half  its  trade  as  merchants  of  Northern 
Italy  abandoned  the  old  route  across  Europe,  and 
instead  of  sending  their  goods  to  the  warehouses  of 
Cologne  despatched  fleets  through  the  Straits  of  Gib- 
raltar to  the  ports  of  the  Channel  and  to  Bruges ;  if 
the  fairs  of  Champagne  languished  when  armies  en- 
camped on  its  plains  and  turned  them  into  battle-fields, 
and  the  Flemish  Hanse  of  London  slowly  sank  into 
insignificance — it  was  only  to  make  way  for  other  com- 
petitors of  foreign  blood.  Commerce  with  the  East 
throuo-h  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Bay  of  Biscay  was 

O  J  J 

1  The  men  of  Cologne  had  a  house  in  London  as  early  as  1157. 

-  Founded  before  1240  (Schanz,  i.  291-3).  Some  interesting 
details  are  given  in  Mr.  Hudson's  Notes  on  Norwich  (Norfolk 
Archaeology,  xii.  25  ;  see  section  on  madder  and  woad.)  For 
merchants  of  Lorraine,  Denmark,  &c.,  Liber  Custumarum,  Nuni- 
menta  Gildhalhe  Londiniensis  (Rolls  Series),  vol.  ii.  part  1, 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  77 

seized  by  the  ships  of  Florence  and  Genoa  and  Venice. ] 
The  towns  of  the  German  Ocean  and  the  Baltic  gath- 
ered under  the  banner  of  Liibeck  into  a  new  Hanseatic 
League2  which  broke  the  supremacy  of  Cologne,  claimed 
the  whole  carrying  trade  of  the  Northern  seas,  and 
opened  a  new  line  of  communication  with  the  Levant. 
Novgorod  became  the  centre  of  the  Baltic  trade,  as 
Alexandria  was  the  centre  of  the  Mediterranean  traffic, 
and  the  merchants  of  the  Teutonic  Hanse  offered  to 
the  English  trader  the  silks  and  drugs  of  the  East, 
with  skins  and  hemp  and  timber  of  Novgorod,  and  the 
metals  of  Bohemia  and  Hungary. 

The  Mediterranean  merchant  was  the  great  minister 
to  the  growing  luxury  of  mediaeval  England.  "  The 
estates  and  lords  of  the  realm  "  and  bishops  and  pre- 
lates and  parish  priests  bought  from  him  cloth  of  gold, 
rich  brocades,  vestments  of  white  damask  powdered 
with  gold  of  Venice,3  and  precious  work  of  goldsmiths 

1  In  the  beginning  of    the  fourteenth    century    (Schanz,    i. 
113-8). 

2  See  Keutgen,  Die  Beziehungen  der  Hanse  zu  England,  40. 

3  Boys'  Sandwich,  375  ;  Paston,  iii.  436.     The  foreign  trade  is 
illustrated  by  some  of  the  things  in  Fastolf's  house ;  the  Seeland 
cloth,    i.    481  ;    iii.    405 — brass   pots   and   chafferns  of  French 
making,  i.  481 — silver  Paris  cups,  475;  iii.  270-1,  297-8 — blue 
glasses,  i.  486 — habergeons  of  Milan,  487 — "  overpayn  of  Raines," 
489 — cloth   of  Arras,   479 — harness  from  Almayne,   iii.  405 — 
German  girdles,  iii.  270-1 — the  treacle-pots  of  Genoa,  ii.  293-4, 
bought  of  the  apothecary.     The  merchant's  marks  were  especially 
noted  for  fear  of  adulteration.     The  grocer,  or  dealer  in   foreign 
fruits,  also  sold   hawks,  iii.    55-6.     In  the  reign  of  Henry  the 
Eighth     about    a    dozen    shops     in    London     sold   French    or 
Milan  cups,  glasses,  knives,  daggers,  swords,  girdles,  and   such 
things.     Hist.  MSS.  Com.  viii.  93.   "A  discourse  of  the  common- 
wealth of  this  Real  me  of  England." 


78  TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

and  jewellers,  new-fashioned  glass,  and  many  other 
fine  things — articles  that  "  might  be  forborn  for 
dear  and  deceivable,"  grumbled  the  English  dealer 
in  homely  goods  of  native  manufacture.  The  whole 
luxurious  traffic  down  to  the  "  apes  and  japes  and 
marmosettes  tailed,  nifles,  trifles,  that  little  have 
availed," *  roused  the  bitter  jealousy  of  the  home 
trader ;  and  even  statesmen  foretold  with  alarm  the 
perils  that  must  come  to  the  nation  from  a  commerce 
which  filled  the  land  with  fancy  baubles  and  vanities, 
and  carried  away  in  exchange  the  precious  wealth  of 
the  people,  their  cloth  and  wool  and  tin,  sucking  the 
thrift  out  of  the  land  as  the  wasp  sucks  honey  from 
the  bee.  But  in  spite  of  the  hostility  of  English 
dealers  needy  kings  anxious  to  win  favour  with  the 
great  banking  companies  of  Italy  diligently  encouraged 
the  trade ;  and  (always  in  consideration  of  adequate 
tolls  for  privileges)  freed  merchants  who  came  from 
beyond  the  Straits  from  the  vexatious  control  of  the 
Staple  ;  2  allowed  their  vessels  to  put  into  port  undis- 
turbed at  Southampton  instead  of  being  forced  to  go 
to  Calais ;  and  their  agents  to  travel  through  the 
country  and  buy  and  sell  at  will. 

It  was  Florence  which  in  the  first  half  of  the  four- 
teenth century  took  the  lead  in  the  trade  of  the 
Mediterranean  with  England,3  and  whose  merchants 

1  Libel  of  English  Policy ;    Political  Poems  and  Songs  (Eolls 
Series),    ii.    173,     172.     Fabyan,   630.     See  petition  of  burghers 
against  the  Lombards,  1455,  in  Rot.  Parl.  v.  334. 

2  Schanz,  i.  65.     Strangers  exporting  wool  had  to  pay  43s.  4c?. 
a  sack,  English  merchants   only  5  nobles  or  33s.   4d.  (Fabyan, 
594-5). 

3  In  1372  there  is  a  receipt  by  two  of  the  company  of  the  Strozzi 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  79 

lent  to  Edward  the  Third  the  money  which  alone  en- 
abled him  to  carry  on  the  war  with  France.  But  when 
Edward  declared  himself  unable  to  pay  his  debts  and 
repudiated  the  whole  of  the  Florentine  loans  ruin  fell 
on  the  city ;  its  trade  was  paralyzed,  and  commercial 
disasters  ended  in  political  revolution.  Bankers  of 
Liibeck  took  the  place  of  its  financiers  as  the  Roth- 
schilds of  the  mediaeval  world ;  and  ship-masters  of 
Genoa  seized  the  commerce  which  fell  from  its  hands. 
Though  the  winning  of  the  port  of  Leghorn  in  1421 
brought  a  fresh  outburst  of  trading  activity  to  Flor- 
ence,1 though  its  merchants  established  depots  and 
banks  and  commercial  settlements  in  all  the  great 
towns  of  the  North,  though  cargoes  of  wool  were 
again  shipped  to  its  harbour  (one  English  merchant 
alone  in  1437  selling  to  an  agent  of  the  Albertine 
Company  wool  to  the  value  of  almost  £12,000),2  the 
supremacy  of  the  Republic  in  the  Mediterranean  trade 
was  never  restored. 

For  its  great  competitors,  Genoa  and  Venice,  were 
now  fairly  in  the  field.  Through  their  station  on  the 
Black  Sea  the  Genoese  held  until  the  Turkish  conquest 
the  chief  market  in  the  East  for  European  cloth ;  and 
their  fleets  laden  with  cloth  of  gold,  silk  and  spices 
of  the  Levant,  with  alum  and  mastick  from  the  subject 
islands  of  Chios  and  Phoccea,  with  the  woad  of  Tou- 
louse, and  the  wines  of  Provence,  sailed  to  Southampton 

for  money  from  Archbishop  Langham.  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iv.  part 
1,  186. 

1  Clement,  Jacques  Coaur,  23-4. 

2  For  the  failure  of  this  company  in   1437  and  its  effect   on 
English  traders,  see  Bekynton's  Corres.  i.  248-50,  254. 


80  TOWN  LIFE  OF  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY     CHAP. 

to  exchange  their  cargoes  for  English  cloth,  which  they 
sometimes  carried  back  direct  to  the  Black  Sea,  and 
sometimes  took  on  to  sell  at  the  Flemish  markets,  and 
so  make  a  double  profit  on  their  journey.1  For  their 
world-wide  business  the  Bank  of  St.  George  was 
founded  at  Genoa  in  1407,  with  a  system  of  credit 
notes  of  acknowledgement  for  money  deposited  which 
could  be  transferred  from  hand  to  hand. 

The  great  galleys  of  Venice,  however,  were  formid- 
able rivals  of  the  carracks  of  Genoa.  For  Venice, 
hidden  away  in  the  Adriatic,  with  nothing  of  its  own 
save  salt  to  offer,  showed  in  perhaps  a  higher  degree 
than  any  other  Italian  State  what  might  be  achieved 
by  a  lavish  system  of  State  protection.2  It  was  the 
State  that  built  its  merchant  fleets ;  the  State  that 
leased  out  the  vessels  every  year  to  the  highest  bidders 
for  trading  purposes ;  the  State  that  ordered  the  con- 
duct of  their  business  for  the  greatest  public  wealth  ; 
the  State  that  protected  them  from  competition  by 
forbidding  its  citizens  to  send  out  their  spices  by  the 
overland  route,  or  to  take  in  cloth  from  England  that 
had  not  been  carried  in  Venetian  galleys  by  long  sea. 
By  the  authority  of  its  government  Venice  had  been 
made  the  emporium  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  Italian 
traders  obediently  carried  cloths  or  tin  or  bales  of 
skins  from  England  to  Venice,  and  from  Venice  to 
Corfu.  Fortune  favoured  the  most  astute  among  her 
wooers,  and  showered  on  Venice  the  coveted  blessings 
of  trade.  Her  ships  travelled  far,  and  Italian  mer- 
chants who  had  once  been  only  known  in  England  as 

1  Libel  of  English  Policy.   Pol.  Poems  and  Songs,  ii.  172. 

2  Schanz,  i.  124-6. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  81 

financial  agents  employed  by  the  Papal  Court  to  col- 
lect the  tribute  due  to  Kome,  now  flocked  to  the 
island  on  business  of  a  very  different  character.  The 
harbour  of  Southampton  was  crowded  with  galleys,  in 
which  cunning  tailors  sat  day  and  night  cutting  the 
bales  of  material  bought  into  garments,  so  as  to  save 
the  export  dues  on  cloth.1  In  the  time  of  Richard  the 
Second  a  Genoese  merchant  who  had  leased  the  castle 
as  a  storehouse  for  his  wares  proposed  to  the  King  to 
make  of  Southampton  the  greatest  trading  port  of  the 
west,  and  he  might  well  have  carried  out  his  promise 
if  the  London  merchants  had  not  prudently  sent  a 
messenger  to  murder  him  at  his  own  door.2  Not- 
withstanding the  inhospitable  and  grudging  welcome 
given  by  London  itself  the  Lombards  found  means 
by  the  King's  help  to  maintain  a  thriving  settlement, 
and  in  the  fifteenth  century  the  Venetian  Consuls 
gathered  letters  for  the  regular  mail  to  Venice  once 
every  month.8 

What  the  Venetians  were  to  the  commerce  of  the 
Mediterranean  that  the  merchants  of  the  Hanseatic 
League  were  to  the  commerce  of  the  Baltic  and  the 
German  Ocean.  A  double  strength  had  been  given  to 
the  confederation  of  towns  which  Lubeck  had  drawn 
under  its  banner  by  its  union  with  the  Teutonic  Order — 
an  order  which  had  originated  in  Bremen  and  Lubeck 
and  then  settled  on  the  Baltic  to  create  the  trading  pros- 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  3,  p.  11,  87.    11  H.  IV.  c.  7.    Yarn  and 
unfulled   cloths   paid   only   subsidy — finished    cloths    paid   also 
customs  and  measuring  tax.     Schanz,  i.  448,  note. 

2  Davies'  Southampton,  254. 

3  Denton's  Lectures,  192  ;  Paston  Letters,  iii.  269. 
VOL.  I.  G 


82  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP, 

perity  of  Danzig  and  Elbing.  These  Prussian  cities,, 
while  they  owned  the  Grand  Master  of  the  Order  of 
Teutonic  Knights  as  their  feudal  chief,  were  still  de- 
pendent on  Liibeck.1  And  with  them  were  joined  a- 
multitude  of  towns  so  imposing  in  their  very  numbers 
alone  that  when  the  ambassadors  of  the  Hanseatic 
League  in  England  in  1376  were  asked  for  a  list  of 
the  members  who  made  up  their  vast  association,, 
they  answered  scornfully  that  surely  even  they 
themselves  could  not  be  supposed  to  remember  the 
countless  names  of  towns  big  and  little  in  all  king- 
doms in  whose  name  they  spoke.2  Under  the  strangely 
diverse  lordship  of  Kings,  Dukes,  Margraves,  Counts, 
Barons,  or  Archbishops,  they  found  a  link  in  their 
common  union  in  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  and  ever 
counted  England,  cut  off  from  that  great  common- 
wealth, as  a  "foreign"  nation.3 

In  war  or  in  commercial  negotiations  this  mighty 
confederation,  with  its  members  disciplined  to  act 
together  as  one  body,  dealt  proudly  as  a  nation  on 
equal  terms  with  other  peoples,  and  in  the  strength 
of  its  united  corporation  it  was  in  fact  a  far  more 
formidable  force  than  the  jealous  and  isolated  Ee- 
publics  of  the  South.  Denmark  was  laid  at  its  feet 
by  a  triumphant  war.  Norway  was  held  in  complete 
subjection.  It  forced  the  English  traders  in  the  North 

1  Pauli's  Pictures,  126-132.  2  Keutgen,  41. 

3  Keutgen,  41.  Dinant  was  the  only  town  outside  German- 
speaking  countries  that  belonged  to  the  Hanseatic  League.  It 
entered  the  League  in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century  as  a 
sort  of  external  member — only  sharing  its  privileges  in  England 
and  never  voting  in  its  assemblies — tolerated  rather  than  holding: 
its  right  by  formal  grant.  Pirenne,  Dinant,  97-102. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  83 

Sea  to  bow  to  its  policy  and  fight  at  its  bidding.     So 
powerful  was  the  League  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
that  when  Edward  the  Third  had  ruined  the  banks  of 
Florence  it  was  the  merchants  of  Liibeck  who  became 
his  money-lenders ;  they  were  made  the  farmers  of 
the  English  wool-tax  ;  they  rented  the  mines  of  the 
northern  counties  and  the  tin- works  of  Cornwall.1    The 
whole  carrying  trade  of  the  northern  seas  lay  in  their 
hands.     It  was  vessels  of  the  Hanse  that  sailed  from 
Hull  or  from  Boston  to  Bergen  with  English  wares  and 
brought  back  cargoes  of  salt  fish;2  that  fetched  iron 
from  Sweden,  and  wine  from  the  Rhine  vineyards,  and 
oranges  and  spices  and  foreign  fruits  from  Bruges ; 
and  that  carried  out  the  English  woollen  cloths  to 
Russia  and  the  Baltic  ports,  and  brought  back  wood, 
tin,  potash',  skins,  and  furs.     Within  the  strong  de- 
fences of  their  Steel-yard  3  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames 
by  London  Bridge,  the  advance  guard  of  the  League 
lived  under  a  sort  of  military  discipline,  and  held 
their  own  by  force  of  the  King's  protection  against 
the  hatred  of   London  traders  and  burghers,  which 
now  and  then  burst  into  violent  riots. 

Thus  throughout  the  fourteenth  century  it  was 
strangers  who  held  the  carrying  trade  to  England 
along  the  two  great  commercial  routes — the  passage 
by  Gibraltar  to  the  harbours  of  Italy  and  thence  to 
Alexandria,  and  the  passage  by  the  Sound  to  the 
Baltic  ports  and  so  to  Novgorod.  All  the  profits  of 
transit  as  of  barter  were  secured  by  alien  dealers  who 
travelled  from  village  to  village  throughout  the  coun- 

1  Keutgen,  5,  30.  2  Keutgen,  14-18. 

3  For  a  description  of  the  Steel-yard  see  Pauli's  Pictures. 

G    2 


84  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

try  in  search  of  wool  or  cloth  to  freight  the  foreign 
vessels  that  lay  in  every  harbour — vessels  bigger  and 
better  built  for  commerce  than  any  of  which  England 
could  boast.1  Moreover,  the  English  government  was 
content  to  have  it  so,  and  Kings  who  wanted  to  build 
up  alliances  for  their  foreign  wars,  or  to  replenish 
their  failing  treasury  at  home,  in  all  commercial  regu- 
lations showed  their  favour  mainly  to  foreign  traders 
and  left  the  native  shipowner  to  do  as  best  he  could 
for  himself.  Once,  indeed,  in  the  reign  of  Richard 
the  Second,  a  solitary  attempt  was  made  to  encourage 
the  shipping  industry,  and  the  first  Navigation  Act 
passed  in  England  ordered  "  that  none  of  the  King's 
liege  people  do  from  henceforth  ship  any  merchandise 
in  going  out  or  coming  within  the  realm  of  England 
but  only  in  ships  of  the  King's  liegance."2  This 
Act,  however,  after  the  fashion  of  the  time,  was  only 
to  be  in  force  for  a  few  months ;  and  after  very  brief 
experience  Parliament  wisely  decided  that  the  law 
need  only  be  obeyed  when  "  the  ships  in  the  parts 
where  the  said  merchants  shall  happen  to  dwell  be 
found  able  and  sufficient  .  .  .  and  otherwise  it  shall 
be  lawful  to  hire  other  ships  convenient."3  With 
this  the  experiment  of  State  protection  came  to  an 
end  for  the  next  century ;  and  against  the  great 

1  The  ordinary  size  of  French  ships  seems  to  have  been  1,000 
or  1,200  tons.     (Heralds'  Debate,  51-2.)     Cannyngs,  of  Bristol, 
had  in  his  little  fleet  vessels  of  900,  500,  or  400  tons.     (Cruden's 
Gravesend,  131.)  The  "  Harry  Grace  a  Dieu,"  built  at  Woolwich, 
1512,  was  of  1,500  tons,  and  cost  £6,472.     (Ibid.  143-9.) 

2  1382  ;  5  Richard  II.,  Stat.  1,  c.  3.     See  Schanz,  i.  360,  for 
the  scope  of  this  law. 

3  6  Richard  II.,  Stat.  1,  c.  8. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  85 

confederations  and  State-protected  navies  of  the 
Continent  English  merchants  were  left  to  wage  singly 
as  best  they  could  their  private  and  adventurous  war. 
English  shipping,  indeed,  so  far  as  it  existed  at  all, 
may  be  said  to  have  existed  in  spite  of  the  law. 
There  was  no  navy  whatever  in  any  national  sense. 
A  few  balingers *  and  little  coasting  vessels  lay  in  the 
various  ports — some  of  them  belonging  to  private 
merchants,  some  to  the  town  communities — and  when 
the  King  wanted  ships  for  the  public  service,  whether 
it  was  to  fish  for  herrings  for  his  household  or  to  fight 
the  French,  he  simply  demanded  such  vessels  as  he 
needed  in  any  harbour,  kept  them  and  their  crews 
waiting  on  his  will  for  weeks  or  months,  sent  them 
wherever  he  chose,  and  laid  all  costs  on  the  town  or 
the  owner's  shoulders.2  Moreover,  the  unlucky  mer- 
chant forfeited  his  ship  to  the  Crown  for  any  accident 

1  A  small  war  vessel  with  probably  about  forty  sailors,  ten 
men-at-arms,  and  ten  archers.     Nott.  Rec.  i.  444. 

2  Southampton  had  to  keep  a  ship,  "  le  Grace  de  Dieu,"  at  its 
own  expense  for  the  king's  service.     In  the  last  year  of  Henry 
the  Sixth  its  master  received  from  the  mayor  £31  10s.  Qd.     In 
the  first  year  of  Edward  the  Fourth  the  mayor  paid  for  the 
victualling  and  custody  of  the  ship  £68  5s.  lOd.     In  1470  there 
was  a  great  deal  of  difficulty  about  the  matter.    The  king  ordered 
certain  payments  to  be  made  for  the  ship  which  the  town  for 
some  months  absolutely  refused  to  carry  out.     The  sheriff  at  last 
stepped  into  the  breach  and  paid  the  sums  due  from  money  in  his 
own  office,  and  the  next  year  the  town  was  forced  by  the  king  to 
refund  what  he  had  spent.      Three  successive  sheriffs  were  in 
difficulties  about  this  dispute  between  the  king  and  the  town. 
They  made  payments  as  best  they  could,  and  were  afterwards 
given  indemnity  for  the  sums  they  spent.      (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi 
3,  98-100 ;  Da  vies,  77.     See  also  H.M.C.  xi.  3,  215-16, 188-191, 
221-2  ;  Ibid.  iv.  1,  p.  426,  429-31 ;  Ibid.  v.  517-18,  521,  494  ; 


«6  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

that  might  happen  on  it — if  a  man  died,  or  fell 
overboard,  or  if  it  struck  another  vessel  or  touched 
a  rock.  The  masters  might  suffer  ruin,  or  in  mere 
self-defence  give  up  the  owning  of  ships,  and  the 
sailors  might  forsake  the  sea  and  turn  to  other  occu- 
pations to  escape  being  impressed  for  war :  govern- 
ment interference  to  regulate  wages  only  sent  men  to 
take  service  at  more  tempting  pay  in  foreign  boats.1 
We  cannot  wonder  that  towards  the  end  of  the  four- 
teenth century  it  seems  to  have  been  thought  more 
profitable  under  these  conditions  to  make  ships  for 
others  than  to  own  them,  and  that  builders  were  selling 
their  vessels  to  aliens,  and  these  aliens  "  by  reason  of 
the  excessive  profits  thence  arising  have  often  sold  the 
same  to  the  enemies  of  the  realm."  2  Henry  the  Fifth, 
indeed,  proposed  to  build  up  a  royal  navy,  but  his  plans 
were  cut  short  by  his  death  and  his  ships  sold  under 
Henry  the  Sixth,  and  matters  went  on  as  before.3 

Boys'  Sandwich,  663;  Nottingham  Eecords,  i.  196;  Paston 
Letters,  ii.  100-105  ;  Hot.  Parl.  i.  414,  ii.  306-7.)  Full  accounts 
of  the  making  of  a  barge  in  Ipswich  in  1295  are  given  in  Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  ix.  257-8. 

J  Schanz,  i.  356-7,  362,  367.  On  page  357  he  quotes  from  a 
petition  of  the  commons  in  1371  (Rot.  Parl.  ii.  306-7)  to  prove 
that  the  one  result  of  the  foreign  policy  of  Edward  the  First  was 
the  narrowing  of  town  franchises,  and  consequent  decline  of  the 
navy.  If  the  petition  is  read  to  the  close  the  passage  seems  to 
be  merely  a  piece  of  fine  writing  to  arrest  attention,  and  the  town 
franchises  are  not  mentioned  again  when  the  king  asks  to  have 
the  real  grievances  stated.  In  the  second  petition  (Rot.  Parl.  ii. 
33i!)  the  gist  of  the  complaint  is  that  foreign  merchants  are 
allowed  to  sell  and  buy  in  England,  which  is  represented  as  a 
loss  of  all  their  franchises. 

2  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  501. 

3  Edward  the  Fourth  made  one  futile  attempt  to  revive  the 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  87 

English  traders,  however,  did  not  sit  down  idly 
to  wait  for  State  protection.1  Already  in  the  middle 
of  the  fourteenth  century  a  new  life  was  stirring 
in  the  sea-ports,  and  before  long  every  one  of  them 
began  to  send  its  contingent  to  the  host  that  went 
out  for  the  conquest  of  the  sea.  Towns  big  and 
little  were  creating  or  strengthening  their  fleets, 
made  up  either  of  the  "common  barges"  of  the 
community,  or  the  private  ships  of  their  trading 
companies.  Shipbuilding  was  dear  in  England  from 
the  want  of  wood  in  the  country  as  well  as  of  iron 
suitable  for  the  purpose,  and  cost,  if  we  may  believe 
a  contemporary  observer,  twice  as  much  as  in  France.2 
So  poor  communities  like  Lydd  that  could  not  afford 
big  ventures  made  shift  by  hiring  vessels  from 
Britanny,  Sandwich,  or  London,  and  fitting  them  out 
as  economically  as  might  be,  with  an  old  wine-pipe 
sawed  in  half  to  serve  for  a  bread  barrel.3  On  the 
other  hand,  prosperous  ports  like  Lynn  added  large 
sums  year  after  year  to  the  town  budget  for  shipping.4 
A  far  poorer  place,  Romney,  spent  £73  on  its  common 
barge  in  1381;  in  1396  another  was  bought  and  fitted 
out  for  £82  ;  and  a  third  in  1400  at  over  £40  ;  while 
a  few  years  later  yet  another  ship  was  procured  for  the 
Bordeaux  trade.  These  vessels  sailed  to  Scotland  and 

protection  of  English  shipping,   but  the  Act  only  lasted  three 
years.     (3  Ed.  IV.  c.  i.) 

1  Schanz,  i.  328. 

-  Heralds'  Debate,  51-2. 

3  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.   528.     See  the  hiring  out  of  the  London 
barge ;  loss  by  accident  from  tempest  or  enemies  to  fall  on  the 
commonalty  ;  Mem.  Lond.,  478. 

4  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  3,  215-16,  221-2,  188-191. 


TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

Newcastle  and  Norfolk  and  the  ports  of  the  Southern 
coasts  ;  or  to  Ireland  for  wood,  to  Amiens  for  sea-coal, 
to  Britanny  for  salt,  to  Flanders  for  the  wares  of  the 
Levant,  to  Southern  France  for  cargoes  of  wine,  and 
oil,  and  wood.  In  1400  "the  new  barge"  carried 
forty-two  tuns  of  wine  from  Rochelle  ;  in  1404  it 
brought  forty  tuns  besides  oil  and  wood,  and  in  a 
later  voyage  carried  fifty-six  tuns.1  Everywhere  the 
trading  temper  laid  hold  upon  the  people.  In  Rye, 
where  the  inhabitants  had  been  wont  to  pay  their 
yearly  oblations  punctually  on  the  8th  of  September, 
there  came  a,  time  when  so  many  of  them  were  abroad, 
some  attending  fairs,  some  fishing  in  remote  seas,  "that 
Divine  worship  is  not  then  observed  by  them  as  it 
ought  to  be,  and  the  due  oblations  are  withheld  and 
hardly  ever  paid  ;  "  and  the  day  of  offering  had  to  be 
changed.2 

The  more  important  side  of  the  movement,  how- 
ever, was  the  growth  of  private  enterprise  as  shown  in 
the  associations  of  merchants  formed  in  all  the  bigger 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  534-540. 

2  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.   496.     Rye  kept  its  own  "  schipwrite,'r 
John  Wikham,   who  had  the  freedom   of  the  town  for  sixteen 
years  while  building  the  ships   of   the  port,  and  at  last  left  in 
1392  with  a  glowing  testimonial  from  the  mayor  and  barons  of 
Bye.     Along  with  other  towns  it  had  made  profit  by  selling  ships 
to  aliens,   which  might  afterwards  be  used   by  the  enemies  of 
England,  and  a  proclamation  was  sent  to  Kye  in  1390  forbidding 
such  sales.     For  the  export  of  eggs  from  Norwich  in  1374,  as  well 
as  butter  and  cheese  and  corn,  and  possibly  oysters,  see  Hudson's 
Norwich  Leet  Jurisdiction  (Selden    Society),  62,  63,  65.      The 
practice  of  forestalling,  carried  to  so  great  an  extent  as  is  here  and 
elsewhere   described,  doubtless  implied  buying  for  the  foreign 
market. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  89 

towns  for  trading  purposes.  Already  in  the  time 
of  Richard  the  Second  there  was  a  "  Fellowship  of 
Merchants  "  in  Bristol  who  directed  the  whole  foreign 
trade  and  the  import  of  foreign  merchandise,  and 
who  even  then  did  business  on  a  very  considerable 
scale,  for  when  in  1375  Bristol  ships  laden  with  salt 
were  captured  and  burnt  in  the  Channel  the  losses 
were  set  down  at  £17,739.  Before  fifty  years  were 
over  their  trading  vessels  wrere  known  in  every  sea 
from  Syria  to  Iceland.  The  richer  merchants  built 
up  by  degrees  little  fleets  of  ten  or  twelve  vessels 
varying  from  400  to  900  tons ;  and  one  of  them, 
William  Cannynges,  an  ancestor  of  Lord  Canning, 
who  in  1461  had  ten  ships  afloat  (one  The  Nicholas  of 
the  Tower  from  whence  came  Suffolk's  headsman), 
employed  800  seamen  and  100  carpenters,  masons, 
and  artificers.1  Nor  was  Bristol  singular  in  its  activity. 
The  Guild  of  Merchants  at  Lynn  rivalled  that  of  York. 
"  With  the  Divine  assistance,  and  the  help  of  divers  of 
the  King's  subjects,"  John  Taverner  of  Hull  in  1449 
built  a  great  "  carrack "  on  the  scale  of  the  mighty 
ships  of  Genoa  and  Venice.  Far  and  wide  the  move- 
ment spread  till  the  brief  tale  of  169  merchants 
which  had,  been  counted  up  by  Edward  the  Third 
when  he  wanted  to  borrow  money  from  them,  ex- 
panded towards  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  centuiy 
into  a  company  of  more  than  3,000  traders  engaged 
in  sea-commerce  alone.2 

•   1  Hunt's  Bristol,  74,  94-96. 

2  Schanz,  i.  328.  For  St.  Mary's  Gild  in  York  see  Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  i.  109,  110.  This  "mystery  of  Mercers,"  or  "  Com- 
munity of  Mercers  "  in  York  formed  into  a  body  with  a  governor 


90  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

From  whatever  town  they  came  these  traders  with 
foreign  ports  were  all  alike  known  to  the  men  of  the 
fourteenth  century  by  one  significant  name — 
the  Adventurers.  For  since  there  was  but  one  pro- 
tected industry  in  England,  the  Staple,  every  merchant 
who  was  not  a  Stapler  was  a  free  Adventurer.  All 
trade  that  lay  outside  the  Staple  was  for  his  winning.1 
Bound  to  no  place  or  company  or  government  or  laws, 
he  was  left  to  discover  for  himself  a  corner  in  the 
world's  market,  and  to  protect  himself  on  sea  and  land. 
A  perfectly  indifferent  State  gave  him  no  help  in  his 
first  ventures  to  become  the  carrier  of  English  com- 
merce, and  vouchsafed  no  encouragement  to  shipbuilder 
or  master  by  offers  of  special  favours  or  grants  of 
reduced  tolls  on  a  first  voyage.2  He  sailed  out  of 
port  into  a  sea  of  peril.  Pirates  of  all  nations,  Vit- 
alien  Brlider  in  the  Baltic  and  the  North  Sea,  Likedelers 
of  Calais,3  Breton  cruisers,  vigorous  monopolists  of  the 
Hanse,  outraged  merchants  of  the  South  burning  for 

in  1430 — in  fact,  became  a  company  of  Merchant  Adventurers. 
(Gross,  ii.  280.)  The  Shipmen's  Guild  of  Holy  Trinity  in  Hull 
drew  up  its  constitution  in  1309,  but  got  its  first  royal  grant  in 
1443.  The  Merchant  Guild  of  S.  George  also  dates  from  the 
fifteenth  century.  (Lambert's  Guild  Life,  128-131,  156-161.) 

1  In  1422  a  writ  was  issued  by  the  Privy  Council  to  permit  a 
Bristol  merchant  to  take  two  vessels  laden  with    cloth,    wine, 
salt,  and  other  merchandise  not  belonging  to  the  Staple.     The 
cloth  and  wine  were  to  be  sold,  and  meat,  hides,  salmon,  herrings, 
and  fish  to  be  bought,  and  the  salt  used  for  salting  these  provisions. 
Proc.  Privy  Council,  ii.  322-3. 

2  When  Taverner  built  his  ship  for  the  Mediterranean  trade 
he  got   no  reduction  of  tolls,  but  had  to  pay  the   high  export 
dues  fixed  for  foreigners.     Schanz,  i.  367. 

3  Keutgen,  79  ;  Plummer's  Fortescue,  232-3. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  91 

vengeance,  lay  in  wait  on  every  quarter  of  the  horizon. 
In  1395  Norfolk  traders  were  robbed  of  £20,000  "  by 
the  Queen's  men  of  Denmark,  the  which  was  an  un- 
doing to  many  of  the  merchants  of  Norfolk  for 
evermore  afterwards ; " l  and  frequent  and  piteous 
were  the  complaints  that  went  up  to  the  Privy  Council 
from  English  shippers  begging  redress  and  protection 
as  outrage  followed  outrage.2  But  a  State  which 
was  without  any  organized  naval  force  was  powerless 
to  establish  order.  Whether  it  gave  the  charge  of 
keeping  the  peace  on  the  high  seas  to  the  merchants 
themselves,  or  to  the  Staplers,  or  by  special  commis- 
sion to  the  Admirals  3  of  the  coast,  or  to  a  committee 
of  lords,  or  to  the  foremost  among  the  offenders,  the 
Captain  of  Calais  himself,  its  experiments  were  equally 

1  Eng.  Chron.  1387-1461,  113.     French  pirates  "whirling  on 
the  coasts  so  that  there  dare  no  fishers  go  out,"  (Paston  Letters, 
iii.  81)  behave  "  as  homely  as  they  were  Englishmen."     (Ibid.  i. 
114-116.) 

2  For  the  frequent  disputes  in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Fourth 
see  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  443.     In  1419,  when  some   Bristol  mer- 
chants had  seized  vessels  belonging  to  the  Genoese,  the  King  sent 
a  messenger  to  choose  for  him  a  portion  of  the  prize,  for  which, 
however,   he  promised   honestly  to   pay  the  merchants.     Proc. 
Privy  Council,  ii.  267.     The  mayor  of   Lynn  attended  by   two 
proctors  travelled  with  the  King's  embassy  to  Bruges  in   1435 
"  for  the  worship  of  the  town"  as  its  representative  to  declare 
the  wrongs  done  to  Lynn  merchants  "  by  the  master  of  Pruce 
and  his  subjects  and  by  them  of  the  Hanse."     Hist.  MSS.  Com., 
xi.  3,  163;  Polydore  Yergil,  159  ;  Davies'  Southampton,  252-3, 
275,  475. 

3  Stubbs,  ii.   314,  iii.  57,   65  ;  Plummer's  Fortescue,   235-7. 
From  time  to  time  money  was  collected  for  the  protection  of 
trade  ;    (ISTott.  Eec.  ii.  34-36).      In   1454  Bristol  gave  £150  for 
this  purpose — the  largest  sum  given  by  any  town  save  London. 
(Hunt's  Bristol,  97-8.) 


92  TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

vain.  Iii  self-protection  town  barges  and  merchants' 
ships  sailed  in  companies  under  an  admiral  of  their 
own  choosing,  armed  to  the  teeth  like  little  men  of 
war  against  the  enemy,  and  even  carrying  cannon  on 
board  as  early  as  1407,  before  any  kind  of  hand-guns 
had  been  invented.1  If  when  disaster  overtook  them 
their  masters  appealed  for  compensation  to  the 
government  they  did  not  wait  solely  on  the  State  for 
redress ;  and  English  rulers  seem  to  have  been  often 
less  perplexed  to  bring  a  remedy  to  their  sufferings 
than  to  conciliate  the  great  foreign  confederations 
whose  anger  had  been  roused  by  their  swift  and 
violent  retaliation.  There  were  indeed  probably  no 
more  formidable  pirates  afloat  than  these  English 
cruisers  themselves,  for  they  were  hard  fighters  who 
took  a  prompt  revenge  ;  and  among  foreigners  at  all 
events  they  won  the  reputation  of  using  their  shipping 
for  no  other  purpose  than  to  harass  all  trade  of  other 
peoples  in  the  narrow  seas,  and  "  obstruct  the  utility 
of  commerce  throughout  all  Christendom."  2 

Under  these  conditions  we  can  easily  understand 
that  throughout  the  century  whenever  the  question 
of  the  English  navy  emerges  in  Rolls  of  Parliament 

1  Rymer's  Fceclera,  viii.  470. 

-  Debate  of  Heralds,  49.  In  1488  a  letter  from  London  io  the 
money-changer  Frescobaldo,  at  Venice,  told  that  Flanders  galleys 
which  left  Antwerp  for  Hampton  fell  in  with  three  English 
ships,  who  commanded  them  to  strike  sail,  and  though  they  said 
they  were  friends,  forced  them  to  fight.  Eighteen  English  were 
killed.  But  on  the  complaint  of  the  captain  of  the  galleys 
the  King  sent  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  to  say  he  need  not  fear, 
as  those  who  had  been  killed  must  bear  their  own  loss  and  a 
pot  of  wine  would  settle  the  matter.  Davies'  Southampton,  475. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  93 

and  Statutes  and  official  statements,  we  have  a  con- 
temporary picture  drawn  in  the  gloomiest  colours.1 
Statesmen  heap  up  details  to  show  how  badly  the  mer- 
chant service  fulfils  its  vague  functions  as  a  royal  navy. 
Ship-owners  bring  their  loud  complainings  to  prove 
how  ill  they  have  been  used  by  the  State.  Each  side 
burns  to  waken  the  other  to  a  sense  of  its  duty,  and 
talk  of  the  decay  of  English  power  by  sea  might  be 
pressed  into  the  service  of  either,  while  the  loss  of 
Southern  France  and  the  temporary  blow  which  this 
gave  to  English  shipping  was  used  to  point  the  argu- 
ment on  both  sides.  The  sea  was  our  wall  of  defence, 
it  was  said ;  but  now  the  enemy  was  on  the  wall  and 
where  was  our  old  might  of  ships  and  sailors  ?  The 
very  Dutch  were  laughing  at  our  impotence,  and  when 
they  insolently  jested  at  the  ships  engraved  on  the 
coins  of  Edward  the  Third  and  asked  why  we  did  not 
engrave  a  sheep  on  them  instead,  the  pun  was  felt  to 
inflict  a  deep  wound  on  the  national  honour.2 

Such  judgements,  however,  should  be  read  in  the 
light  of  the  records  which  tell  us  what  English  ships 
afloat  upon  the  sea  were  actually  doing  in  those  days. 
For  at  this  very  time  the  unofficial  Englishman 
seems  to  have  been  boasting  that  his  people  possessed 
a  greater  number  of  fine  and  powerful  ships  than  any 
other  nation,  so  that  they  were  "  kings  of  the  sea ; " 

1  See  Libel  of  English  Policy,  Pol.  Poems  and  Songs,  ii.  164-5 
For  complaints  in  1444  and  1485  see  Rot.  Parl.  v.  113. 

2  Libel  of    English   Policy,  Pol.    Poems    and    Songs,  ii.    159. 
Capgrave  de  Illust.  Henricis,  135.     A  man  at  Canterbury  was 
accused  in  1448  of  saying  that  the  king  was  not  able  to  bear  the 
fleur-de-lys  nor  the  ship  in  his  noble.     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  455.) 

3  Heralds'  Debate,  17. 


94  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

and  if  the  boast  was  a  little  premature  it  lay  on  the 
whole  nearer  to  the  truth.  Even  now  the  fleets  of 
the  Adventurers  were  going  forth  to  the  conquest 
of  the  seas,  and  their  enterprise  marks  one  of  the 
great  turning  points  in  our  history.  It  was  in  fact 
during  this  century  that  England  raised  herself  from 
the  last  place  among  commercial  peoples  to  one  of 
the  first.  At  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  century,  as  we 
have  seen,  English  merchandise  was  mostly  borne  in 
foreign  ships  ;  a  hundred  years  later,  English  vessels 
carried  more  than  a  half  of  all  the  cloths  exported 
from  the  country,  and  about  three  quarters  of  all 
other  goods,1  and  the  Navigation  Act  that  had  failed 
under  Eichard  the  Second  was  put  in  triumphant 
operation  by  Henry  the  Seventh.2 

It  was  in  the  Northern  Seas  that  the  real  stress  of 
the  battle  lay.  There  from  a  very  early  time  bands 
of  roving  adventurers  went  cruising  from  harbour  to 
harbour  to  discover  what  spoils  of  trade  the  orthodox 
merchants  of  the  Staple  or  the  Hanse  had  left  un- 
gathered,  and  how  the  fertile  resources  of  the  lawless 
free-trader  might  be  used  to  shatter  these  stately 
organizations.  When  the  older  merchants  concen- 
trated themselves  in  Bruges  and  Calais  the  free  lances 
of  trade  sought  out  the  neglected  markets  of  Brabant 
and  Holland.  Driven  from  the  marshes  of  Middleburg 
they  turned  to  Antwerp  which  the  Staplers  had  for- 
saken. Scarcely  had  the  Hanse  merchants  under  the 

1  Hchanz,  ii.  27. 

2  4  H.  VII.  cap.  x.  ;  .Schanz,  i.  368-9.   Encouragement  was  also 
given  to  building  of  English  ships — as  for  example  by  remission 
of  tolls  on  the  first  voyage  (Schanz,  ii.  591). 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  95 

stress  of  their  Danish  wars  withdrawn  from  Bergen 
than  the  Adventurers  forthwith  slipped  into  their 
place,  set  up  their  own  Staple,  gathering  goods  there 
to  the  value  of  10,000  marks,  and  for  years  fought 
steadily  against  fire  and  sword  to  hold  their  own.1 
If  the  Baltic  towns  fell  behind  the  western  members 
of  the  League  in  maritime  enterprizc,  the  Adven- 
turers' fleets  flocked  to  their  harbours,  so  that  three 
hundred  of  them  were  seen  in  the  harbour  of  Danzig 
alone,  carrying  dealers  in  cloth  ready  to  spread 
their  wares  in  every  market  town  of  Prussia.  They 
pushed  their  way  into  the  fish-markets  of  Schonen, 
offering  bales  of  cloth  instead  of  money  2  for  salt  her- 
rings, and  rousing  the  alarm  of  the  Hanseatic  mer- 
chants there  also.  By  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury they  had  so  prospered  in  the  world  on  all  sides 
that  they  professed  to  look  on  large  branches  of  trade 
as  their  own  exclusive  property,  and  to  make  a  griev- 
ance of  interference  with  their  profits  by  other  "  med- 
dling merchants  who  were  not  content  with  their  own 
business  in  which  they  had  been  brought  up  and  by 
which  they  were  well  able  to  live." 

This  was  the  beginning  of  a  new  stage  in  their  his- 
tory. The  Adventurers  now  proposed  to  enter  the 
decent  ranks  of  recognized  associations,  and  exchange 
their  roving  wars  for  the  more  formal  aggressions  of  a 
chartered  company ;  and  at  their  prayer  Henry  the 
Fourth  granted  them  in  1406,  for  their  better  ordering 
and  for  their  protection  from  other  "  meddling  mer- 
chants," a  charter  by  which  they  took  as  their  official 

1  Keutgen,  55,  etc.  -  Ibid.  54. 


96  TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

title  their  old  name  of  the  Merchant  Adventurers.1  The 
grant  included  all  dominions  over-sea,  and  allowed 
them  to  wander  where  they  would  in  the  wide  world, 
and  to  draw  within  their  ranks  all  the  Adventurers  of 
England.2  As  yet  their  organization  was  loose  and  free, 
and  was  in  fact  no  true  incorporation  as  a  Guild.  But 
it  marked  the  passing  away  of  their  free  and  stormy 
youth.  From  this  time  privileges  came  to  them  from 
all  sides  by  English  grants,  by  gifts  from  foreign  towns, 
by  protection  of  the  rulers  of  various  countries.  Finally 
in  1446  they  received  a  new  charter  of  privileges  from 
the  Duke  of  Burgundy  3  by  which  their  tolls  were  fixed, 
full  protection  assured  to  them,  and  an  organization 
provided  which  lasted  for  the  next  century.  So  con- 
fident did  they  become  of  their  power,  that  when 
Henry  the  Seventh  at  his  accession  raised  the  tolls  re- 
quired of  them  they  refused  to  pay,  and  he  did  not  dare 
to  enforce  the  order.4  Seeing  indeed  in  their  success 
the  triumph  of  English  commerce,  he  remained  their 
steady  supporter,  confirmed  their  privileges,5  and  when 
at  Calais  they  desired  greater  centralization  and  a 
stricter  discipline,  he  gave  them  a  regular  organization 
after  the  pattern  of  the  Staplers  under  Edward  the 
Third,  with  governors  and  a  council  of  twenty-four 
assistants. 6  Amid  all  their  successes  it  was  little  wonder 

1  Schanz,  i.    332  ;  ii.   575.     A  list  of  the  charters  granted  to 
them  follows,  ibid.  575-8.     See  also  treaty  given,  ibid.  159. 

2  Ibid.  i.  339,  340.  3  Ibid.  ii.  162. 

4  Ibid.  i.  340.  5  1500  ;  Schanz,  ii.  545-7. 

0  In  1505.  Henry  VII.  issued  regulations  for  the  Merchant 
Adventurers.  They  might  meet  in  Calais  to  elect  governors ; 
and  they  were  at  the  same  time  to  elect  a  council  of  twenty- 
four  called  "  assistants,"  who  were  to  have  jurisdiction  over 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  97 

that  there  came  a  time  when  they  themselves  forgot 
the  free  audacity  of  their  adventurous  youth.  In 
their  maturer  years,  as  the  vehement  assertors  of 
monopoly  and  State  protection,  they  cast  behind  their 
backs  the  very  remembrance  of  their  lawless  prede- 
cessors, and  for  a  braver  pedigree  they  traced  their 
greatness  back  to  ancestors  made  respectable  by  a  fabled 
charter  from  King  John  himself,  and  boasted  of  Alder- 
men clothed  in  scarlet  who  were  supposed  to  have 
borne  rule  over  them  in  good  old  times  in  Antwerp. 

The  legend  was  the  product  of  a  time  when  Ant- 
werp was  in  fact  the  capital  of  the  Merchant  Adven- 
turers— the  home  and  centre  of  their  trade.  For 
there  in  the  fifteenth  century  they  entered  on  an 
inheritance  which  had  been  left  waste  when  the 
merchant  princes  of  the  Staple  had  finally  retired 
to  Calais,  and  had  thus  practically  abandoned  all 
direct  trade  between  Antwerp  and  England  to 
private  hands.  The  Adventurers  soon  solved  the 
question  of  who  was  to  carry  it  on.1  In  1407  the 

all  members  and  power  to  make  statutes,  and  to  appoint 
officers  both  in  England  and  in  Calais  to  levy  fines  and  to 
imprison  offenders.  The  council  filled  up  its  own  vacancies. 
Every  merchant  using  the  dealings  of  a  Merchant  Adventurer 
was  not  only  to  pay  its  tolls  and  taxes,  but  must  enter  the  fellow- 
ship and  pay  his  ten  marks.  The  Calais  officials  were  to  proclaim 
the  marts  whenever  required  to  do  so.  The  Adventurers  might 
appoint  their  own  weighers  and  packers,  and  have  nothing  to  say 
to  the  royal  officers.  (Schanz,  ii.  549-553.) 

1  Schanz  notes  the  settlement  in  Antwerp  as  one  of  the  most 
critical  turning  points  of  English  industrial  and  commercial 
history  (i.  339).  The  movement  had  well  begun  in  the  fourteenth 
and  early  part  of  the  fifteenth  centuries,  but  the  real  influx  of 
English  traders  was  from  1442-4  (ibid.  i.  9).  For  the  treatias 

VOL.  I  H 


98  TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

city  gave  them  a  House  in  perpetual  succession. 
Three  of  their  merchants  sat  in  the  Toll-hall  with 
the  toll-keepers  of  the  borough  to  see  justice  done 
to  their  brethren.  Known  among  the  people  as 
"the  nation,"1  they  early  showed  their  power,  and 
in  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth  century  privileges  in 
the  English  trade  were  more  and  more  withdrawn  from 
the  native  traders  of  the  Netherlands,  and  gathered 
into  their  own  hands.  They  used  their  powers  to  the 
full,  governed  firmly,  ordered  the  whole  English 
trade  with  the  Low  Countries,  dictated  what  fair  was 
to  be  attended,  and  ruled  the  prices,  in  spite  of  the 
loud  remonstrances  of  the  unlucky  natives.2  At 
the  great  marts  held  in  the  Netherlands  four  times 
a  year 3  "  they  stapled  the  commodities  which  they 
brought  out  of  England,  and  put  the  same  to  sale,"4 
and  by  1436  they  could  boast  that  they  bought  more 
goods  in  Brabant,  Flanders,  and  Zealand 5  than  all 

with  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  in  1407  concerning  English  traders 
in  Flanders,  Rymer's  Foedera,  viii.  469-78. 

1  Schanz,  ii.  577,  581,  582. 

2  Ibid.  i.  343,  344. 

3  12  Henry  VII.  c.  6. 

4  Wheeler,  Treatise  of  Commerce,  19,  23. 

5  "  Deja  au  quinzieme  siecle  les  Ecossais  avaient  a  Veere  en 
Zelande   un  depot  pour  leurs  marchandises,   administre  par  un 
'  Conservator.'     Sir  Thomas  Cunningham  remplit  cet  office  jusqu'4 
sa  mort  en  1655,  et  ce  ne   fut  que  le  28    novembre,  1661  (sic), 
que  Sir  W.  Davison  en  fut  charge  ;  il  demeura  de  temps  en  temps 
a  Amsterdam,  ou  il  eut  des  querelles  a  1'occasion  des  impots 
municipaux.     Plus  tard,  il  eut  des  differends  avec  le  pasteur 
episcopal  Mowbray,  qui  par  suite   fut  deplace,  et  enfin   avec  les 
Ecossais  de  Yeere  eux-memes.      En   1668  Davison  fit  un  traite 
-avec    la    ville   de    Dordrecht,    pour   y   transporter   les   affaires 


nr  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  99 

other  nations,  and  that  if  their  merchants  were  with- 
drawn it  would  be  as  great  a  loss  to  the  French  trade 
as  though  a  thousand  men  of  war  were  sent  into  the 
country.1  The  growing  jealousy  of  the  manufacturers 
in  Flanders  indeed  threatened  at  times  to  cut  off  their 
entire  business ;  and  as  they  were  the  first  to  bear  the 
rising  storm  of  commercial  rivalries,  so  again  and 
again  they  were  brought  within  sight  of  ruin  by  the 
laws  passed  on  either  side  the  water  forbidding  all 
import  or  export  trade. 

For  in  their  desperate  attempt  to  save  the  Flemish 
weavers  from  ruin  the  Dukes  of  Burgundy  forbade 
dressers  to  finish  English  cloth,  or  tailors  to  cut  it  in 
the  Netherlands,  and  laid  heavy  penalties  on  any  man 

d'Ecosse;  mais  comme  les  Ecossais  ne  voulurent  pas  s'y  con- 
former,  Davison  fut  contraint  deprendre  son  conge  en  mai  1671  ; 
Yeere  resta  le  depot  du  commerce  ecossais.  Consultez  encore 
1'ouvrage  tr&s  rare.  "  An  account  of  the  Scotch  Trade  in  the 
Netherlands,  and  of  the  Staple  Port  in  Campvere.  By  James 
Yair,  Minister  of  the  Scotch  Church  in  Campvere.  London, 
1776."  (CEuvres  Completes  de  Huygens.  Amsterdam,  1893. 
Note  on  a  letter  from  R.  Moray  to  Huygens,  Jan.  30,  1665.) 

1  Libel  of  English  Policy.  Pol.  Poems  and  Songs,  ii.  180,  181. 
See  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  x.  4,  445-6.  "William  Mucklow,  merchant 
at  London,  sent  commissions  to  his  son  Richard  at  Antwerp ;  a 
Richard  Mucklow  was  warden  of  S.  Helen's,  "Worcester,  either  in 

1510  or  1519  (446).     An  account  book  of  "Wm.  Mucklow,  mer- 
chant, "  in  the  Passe  Mart  at  Barro,  Middleburg,  in  the  Synxon 
Mart   at  Antwerp,  in  the  Cold  Mart  and  in  Bamys  Mart,"  in 

1511  records  sales  of  white  drapery  and  purchase  of  various  goods 
— a  ball  battery,  fustian,  buckram,  knives,  sugar,  brushes,  satin, 
damask,  sarsenet,  velvet,  pepper,  Yssyngham  cloth,  spectacles, 
swan's  feathers,  girdles,  "  socket,"  treacle,  green  ginger,  ribands, 
brown  paper,  Brabant  cloth,  pouches,  leather,  buckets,  "  antony 
belles,"  "  sacke  belles,"  sheets,  &c. ;  and  the  names  of  the  vessels 
in  which  the  goods  were  shipped. 

H    2 


100          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

in  Flanders  who  was  seen  dressed  in  woollen  stuffs  of 
English  make  ;a  but  still  the  cloth  came  in,  smuggled  by 
speculating  dealers  from  Antwerp,  or  scattered  broad- 
cast by  licensed  merchants  who  had  bought  from  the 
authorities  leave  to  evade  the  law.2  Once  in  con- 
sequence of  political  disputes  3  the  Adventurers  had 
to  migrate  to  Calais,  and  see  the  legal  trade  with 
the  Low  Countries  given  to  the  Easterlings,  a  sight 
which  '•  sore  nipped  their  hearts  ;  "  but  first  in  "  dis- 
ordered "  fashion,  then  lawfully,  they  were  soon  back 
at  their  old  occupations.4  With  the  steady  support 
of  Henry  the  Seventh,  whose  whole  policy  was 
directed  to  develope  the  trade  with  Burgundy  and 
bind  England  and  the  Netherlands  into  a  united 
commercial  state,  their  prosperity  was  assured ;  and 
before  the  close  of  the  century  Antwerp,  after  two 
hundred  years  of  struggle  for  supremacy  in  trade, 
took  its  place  as  the  great  centre  of  commerce 5  in  the 
Netherlands,  while  its  rival  Bruges  sank  into  utter 
poverty  and  decay.  When  at  last  after  many  chances 
and  changes,  the  English  won  in  1506  through  Henry 
the  Seventh  free  trade  in  cloth  throughout  all  the 
dominions  of  the  Archduke  Philip  save  Flanders,  they 
actually  found  themselves  better  off  in  the  Netherlands 

1  Rot.  Parl.  iv.  126  ;  Schanz,  i.  443-445.    For  English  reprisals, 
27  H.  VI.  cap.  i.  ;  28  H.  VI.  cap.  i.  ;  4  Ed.  IV.  cap.  5. 

2  Schanz,  ii.  191-3,  203-6.     Negotiations  were  still  going  on 
in  1499  as  to  the  trade  disputes  between  Henry  the  Seventh,  the 
Archduke,  and  the  Staple  at  Calais  (Schanz,  ii.   195-202).     The 
main  point  in  dispute  was  allowing  English  cloths  to   be   cut  in 
the  Netherlands  for  making  clothes. 

3  In  1493:  Schanz,  i.  17^  18.  4  Schanz,  ii.  582-5. 
5  Ibid.  i.  7-11. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  101 

than  the  native  merchants,  paid  less  tolls  than  they, 
and  were  in  a  position  whence  they  might  easily  over- 
run the  country  with  their  wares  and  finally  destroy 
its  decaying  cloth  industry.1 

From  their  central  stronghold  in  Antwerp  the 
Merchant  Adventurers  further  maintained  a  lively 
war  to  right  and  left,  on  the  one  side  with  the 
Staple  at  Calais,  on  the  other  with  the  Hanseatic 
League. 

It  was  practically  the  jealousy  of  the  Staplers  that 
had  first  driven  the  Adventurers  from  Bruges,  and  no 
sooner  did  they  feel  their  strength  than  they  prepared 
to  make  their  ancient  enemies  pay  the  penalty  for  old 
wrongs.  Towards  the  merchants  of  the  Staple  the 
very  character  of  their  trade  from  the  first  forced  them 
into  a  militant  attitude.  Shut  out  from  all  interest 
in  the  sale  of  wool,  their  fortune  rested  solely  on  the 
manufacturing  industries,  and  the  more  weaving  at 
home  was  encouraged  the  greater  were  their  gains.2 
And  since  the  wool  merchants  proceeded  both  to  claim 
and  to  practise  the  right  of  exporting  and  selling  cloth 
as  well  as  wool,  they  became  in  a  double  sense  ob- 
noxious to  their  rivals.  Now,  however,  the  Adven- 
turers could  fight  from  the  vantage  ground  given  them 
by  their  new  position  as  a  chartered  company.  Out 
of  their  acknowledged  right  to  demand  tolls  on  the 
sale  of  cloth  in  their  marts,  they  deduced  by  a  liberal 
interpretation  of  their  powers  the  right  to  require 
from  each  trading  Stapler  in  addition  to  the  ordinary 
tolls  an  entrance  fee  or  hanse  of  ten  marks,  by  pay- 
ment of  which  he  became  a  freeman  of  the  Adven- 
1  Schanz,  i.  31,  32.  2  Ibid.  i.  339. 


LiBKARY 

OF  CALIfCftfflA 
RIVERSIDE 


102          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

turers'  Company  and  was  made  subject  to  their  laws 
and  courts,1  and  if  he  refused  to  pay  they  seized  his 
wares,  or  imprisoned  him  till  he  gave  the  "hanse."2 
Wealthy  merchants  of  the  Staple  who  had  taken  their 
wares  to  Middleburg  might  find  themselves  thrown 
into  prison  among  felons  and  murderers  infected  with 
odious  diseases ;  the  resolute  Adventurers  refused  bail. 
and  quietly  ignored  royal  letters  of  remonstrance.3 
Already  in  1457  the  Staplers  complained  bitterly  to 
the  English  King  and  to  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  that 
under  colour  of  letters  patent  and  charters,  their 
enemies  so  vexed  them  both  in  their  goods  and  per- 
sons as  to  threaten  them  with  utter  ruin.4  But  the 
decision  of  Henry  the  Sixth  that  the  Adventurers 
were  asserting  unjust  claims  which  were  strictly 
forbidden  for  the  future 5  scarcely  interrupted  the 
battle,  and  the  same  series  of  complaints  and  aggres- 
sions was  brought  in  1  504  before  the  Star  Chamber, 
by  whose  judgement  the  Adventurers  wrere  again 
forbidden  to  go  beyond  their  right  of  levying  tolls. 
But  if  the  law  was  against  them  they  had  on  their 
side  their  own  inexhaustible  activity,  their  unscrup- 
ulous audacity,  their  large  self-confidence,  and  the 
weakness  of  the  dying  company  of  the  Staple.  Six 
years  later  when  the  Staplers  again  summoned  them 
before  the  King  for  their  "  crooked  minds  and 
froward  sayings  "  and  lawless  deeds  of  violence,  they 
answered  with  uncompromising  contempt.  The 
Staplers,  they  allowed,  might  have  certain  privileges 

1  Schanz,  i.  345  :  ii.  561,  562.  2  Instances,  Schanz,  ii.  557,  558. 
3  Ibid.  ii.  564.  *  Ibid.  ii.  543. 

•J   From  Antwerp  Archives  ;  Schanz,  ii.  539-43. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  103 

in  Calais — but  as  to  talking  of  rights  in  Burgundy, 
that  in  their  opinion  was  absurd  to  urge  after  the 
removal  of  the  Staple  thence.  Outside  Calais  the 
Staplers  had  no  rights.  With  regard  to  their  claim 
to  exclusive  jurisdiction  over  their  members,  "  that 
article  might  have  been  left  out  of  their  book,  for 
why  every  reasonable  man  knoweth  the  contrary. " 
In  spite  of  such  "reasonable  men,"  however,  once 
more  the  law  was  proclaimed  to  be  against  them ; 
but  as  they  knew  well  the  law  was  powerless  to  set 
up  again  the  ruined  company  of  the  Merchant 
Staplers. l 

With  the  second  and  more  formidable  arm}'  arrayed 
against  them,  the  merchants  of  the  Hanseatic  League ,. 
the  war  of  the  Adventurers  had  to  be  carried  on  with 
greater  circumspection.  Through  a  couple  of  centuries 
the  doubtful  conflict  was  maintained  on  every  sea  and 

1  In  November,  1504,  the  Staplers  and  Adventurers  appeared 
before  the  Star  Chamber.  The  Staplers  pleaded  a  charter  which 
declared  them  free  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Adventurers.  The 
Star  Chamber  decided  that  every  Stapler  who  dealt  or  traded  as 
an  Adventurer  was  to  be  subject  to  the  courts  and  dues  of  the 
Adventurers  :  and  every  Adventurer  dealing  as  a  Stapler  in  like 
manner  to  be  subject  to  the  Staple  (Schanz,  ii.  547).  This 
decision  seemed  to  imply  the  ruin  of  Staplers,  but  the  next  year 
it  was  explained  that  the  authentic  interpretation  was  simply 
that  "  the  merchants  of  the  Staple  at  Calais  using  the  feate  of  a 
Merchant  Adventurer  passing  to  the  marts  at  Calais  should  in 
those  things  be  contributories  to  such  impositions  and  charges  "  as 
the  Adventurers  had  fixed  (ibid.  549) ;  and  that  they  could  not  be 
compelled  to  join  the  Adventurers'  company.  In  1510  Henry 
the  Eighth  repeated  the  decree  of  Henry  the  Seventh  that  the 
Adventurers  must  not  force  Staplers  to  join  their  body  (555). 
For  the  pleadings  before  the  Star  Chamber  under  Henry  the 
Eighth  see  Schanz,  ii.  556-564. 


104          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

in  every  port  from  Danzig  to  Iceland.  For  the  first 
hundred  years  things  went  ill  for  the  Adventurers. 
The  League  monopolized  the  whole  commerce  between 
the  Scandinavian  kingdoms  and  England  ;l  drove  out 
the  English  from  Schonen,  the  centre  to  which  all  the 
fishers  of  the  Baltic  and  North  Seas  gathered  for  the 
salting,  packing,  and  selling  of  their  fish ; 2  harassed 
them  with  fire  and  sword  in  Bergen,  the  Staple  town 
of  the  north,3  scattering  them  at  one  time  by  starva- 
tion, at  another  by  decrees  of  expulsion  ;  banished 
them  from  the  Prussian  towns  belonging  to  the  Teu- 
tonic Order  which  they  were  "destroying"  with  their 
cloth,4  and  sought  to  ruin  their  trade  by  issuing  an 
order  that  no  merchant  of  the  Hanse  should  buy 
English  cloth  outside  England  itself.  When  the 
League  waged  war  with  Denmark  and  Norway  in 
1368-9  to  confirm  its  mastery  of  the  Northern  Seas, 
it  drao-aed  the  English  traders  at  its  heels  into  the 

cr  t_  o 

tight,  and  at  its  close  threw  them  off  without  a 
thought.5  It  gave  a  scornful  answer  to  demands 
made  by  Parliament  under  Edward  the  Third  and 
Richard  the  Second  that  the  tolls  exacted  from 
Hanseatic  traders  for  exporting  goods  from  England 
should  be  increased ;  and  retorted  by  a  decree  that 
all  trade  with  England  should  be  utterly  broken  off. 
thus  shutting  the  great  market  at  Elbing  to  the 
English  merchants  who  had  made  it  the  centre  of 
their  trade  with  Russia  and  the  towns  of  Prussia.6 

1  Schanz,  i.  249.  -  Keutgen,  42,  51-54. 

3  Schanz,  i.  251.  4  Keutgen,  30,  81.  5  Ibid.  44,  &c. 

'•  Pauli's  Pictures,   172,  185.     Keutgen,  10-43.     Richard   the 
Second  complained  to  the  Grand  Master  that  traders  were  forced 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  105 

The  English  traders,  however,  took  all  misfortune 
with  the  hardihood  and  exuberant  courage  of  youth. 
Help  from  their  own  government  was  beyond  hoping 
for,  so  long  as  conquering  kings  like  Edward  the  Third 
and  Henry  the  Fifth  were  bound  hand  and  foot  to 
the  great  mercantile  houses  of  Liibeck  and  the  Hanse 
towns  by  the  loans  raised  from  them  to  carry  on  the 
French  wars ;  while  Henry  the  Fourth,  who,  before 
he  came  to  the  throne,  had  been  in  Danzig  and  seen 
the  troubles  of  the  English  merchants  there,1  and  who 
in  his  anxiety  to  win  the  support  of  the  trading  class, 
was  persistent  in  negotiations  to  improve  their  posi- 
tion, had  not  the  power  to  give  effect  to  his  desires. 
The  Adventurers,  therefore,  could  only  follow  the  one 
obvious  course  open  to  them,  and  kept  up  a  steady 
brigandage  on  the  seas  and  a  series  of  opportune 
attacks  on  the  enemy's  out-posts.  They  held  on 

to  carry  their  cloth  to  Elbing  instead  of  Danzig  (ibid.  72).  In. 
1388  three  citizens  of  London  and  York  were  sent  to  Marienberg 
with  an  interpreter  to  make  a  treaty  of  commerce  with  the 
"  general  master  of  the  house  of  S.Mary  of  Teutonia."  (Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  i.  109.)  In  1397,  however,  trade  with  the  Easterlings 
was  practically  stopped.  The  English  imposed  enormous  duties  on 
German  imports  ;  the  Germans  forbade  traffic  in  English  cloth. 
For  the  negotiations  carried  on  by  Henry  the  Fourth  see  Literte 
Cantuarienses,  iii.  xxviii.-xxxi.,  and  the  various  letters  on  the 
subject.  The  English  eolony  in  Danzig  increased  greatly  after 
the  peace  of  Marienberg.  (Schanz,  i.  231.)  In  1392  more  than 
300  English  came  into  Danzig  to  carry  corn.  (Keutgen,  71.) 
But  the  resistance  of  the  Danzig  burghers  to  English  trade 
was  strenuous.  They  were  less  jealous  of  the  Netherlands 
manufacturers,  and  the  Teutonic  Order  in  the  fifteenth  century 
sent  to  Dinant  for  the  rough  cloth  needed  for  the  Baltic  trade. 
(Pirenne,  Dinant,  97  ;  Keutgen,  81-83.) 
1  Pauli's  Pictures,  135-8. 


106          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

desperately  at  Bergen,1  and  stoutly  clung  to  the 
formal  right  which  Henry  the  Fourth  had  given 
them  to  organize  themselves  under  consuls  in  Nor- 
way, Sweden,  or  Denmark,  for  the  carrying  on  of  their 
trade.2  Fishing  boats  which  were  shut  out  from  the 
Baltic  or  from  Bergen  sailed  on  to  Iceland,  where,  as 
the  island  was  the  private  property  of  the  King  of 
Norway  (who  was  himself  the  servant  of  the  League) 
and  was  allowed  to  receive  no  ships  save  the  King's, 
or  those  licensed  by  the  King,  opportunities  for  illegal 
trade  were  abundant  and  profits  large.  A  frugal  people, 
needy  and  remote,  eagerly  welcomed  smuggled  goods 
from  England  in  exchange  for  their  fish ;  and  the  smug- 
glers carried  on  a  rough  business — outlaws  and  daring- 
men  of  their  company  plundered  and  killed  and  stole 
cattle  and  desolated  homesteads,  and  bartered  after 
their  own  self-made  laws.3  It  mattered  nothing  to 
them  that  Henry  the  Fifth,  in  obedience  to  the 
League,  forbade  the  trade,  or  that  in  a  storm  of  1419 

1  8  H.  VI.  c.  2  ;  Proc.  Privy  Council,  iv.  208  ;  Schanz,  ii.  170. 

2  In  1425  there  were  letters  from  Henry  the  Sixth  to  the  King 
of    Dacia,  Norwegia,  and   Swecia,  concerning    the   merchants   of 
Lynn  who  traded  with  the  parts  of  North   Berne ;  (Hist.  MSS. 
Com.  xi.  3,  203).    In  1427  he  wrote  to  the  English  merchants  "in 
partibus    Prucie,    Dacie,   Norweie,    Hanse,     and    Swethie    com- 
morantes,"  to  assemble  in  a  sufficient  place,  elect  governors  and 
make  ordinances  for  self-government  in  mercantile  matters,  and 
for  reasonable  punishment  of  any  merchants  disobedient  (203). 
At  times  the  English  even  forced  compensation  from  the  Hanse 
merchants  for  outrages  (Schanz,  i.  250).     In  1438  rye  was  brought 
from  Prussia  "  by  the  providence  of  Stephen  Browne,"  the  mayor, 
at  a  time  of  famine  in  England,  when  a  bushel  of  corn   was  sold 
for  3s.  4d.,  and  the  people  were  making  bread  of  vetches,  peas, 
beans,  and  fern-roots.     (Fabyan,  612.) 

3  Schanz,  i.  254. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  107 

twenty-five  English  ships  were  driven  on  the  coast 
of  Iceland  in  three  hours.  Bristol  men  found  their 
way  to  its  shores  by  help  of  the  compass,  leaving  for 
us  the  first  record  of  its  use  in  England,  probably  in 
1424  ;  and  about  1436,  in  a  year  when  the  English 
had  been  expelled  from  Bergen,  so  many  vessels  sailed 
to  Iceland  that  they  could  get  no  return  cargo,  and 
half  of  them  had  to  come  empty  home.1  But  the 
northern  trade  was  not  all  violent  or  lawless.  English 
merchants  bought  double  licenses  from  the  English 
and  the  Norwegian  kings,  which  allowed  them  to 
carry  on  a  regular  traffic ;  and  in  the  middle  of  the 
fifteenth  century  one  of  the  Bristol  merchants,  Can- 
nynges,  had  in  his  hands  the  chief  trade  with  northern 
Europe.  Not  only  were  his  factors  established  in  the 
Baltic  ports,  but  his  transactions  with  Iceland  and 
with  Finland  were  on  so  great  a  scale  that  when  in 
1450  all  English  trade  with  these  regions  was  for- 
bidden in  virtue  of  a  treaty  with  the  King  of  Den- 
mark, Cannynges  was  specially  exempted  on  account 
of  the  debts  due  to  him  there  by  Danish  subjects,  and 
for  two  years  he  had  a  monopoly  of  the  trade.2 

Meanwhile  the  Adventurers  watched  their  oppor- 

1  Libel  of  English  Policy.  Pol.  Poems  and  Songs,  ii.  191.     The 
bailiffs  and  community  of  Chepstovre  did  trade  with  Iceland  and 
Finmark.    (Proc.  Privy  Council,  iv.  208.)    In  1426  Lynn  forbade 
trade  with  Iceland  to  its  inhabitants  and  the  whole  community 
sent  a  petition  against  the  trade  to  the  King's  Council.     (Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  xi.  3,  160.) 

2  Hunt's  Bristol,  94-6.     In  1491   fishing-smacks  starting  for 
Iceland  had  to  get  leave  to  sail,  after  finding  surety  that  they 
would  not  carry  more  grain  nor  any  other  forbidden  thing  than 
sufficed  for  their  own  food.     Paston  Letters,  iii.  ."67-9. 


108          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

t unity  to  carry  the  war  nearer  home,  for  the  League, 
already  weighted  with  the  effort  to  maintain  its  mono  - 
poly  before  the  rise  of  Scandinavian  powers  and  the 
consolidation  of  the  Duchy  of  Burgundy,  was  further 
troubled  within  its  own  ranks  by  divided  counsels.1  In 
the  reign  of  Henry  the  Sixth,  therefore,  the  English 
renewed  among  other  claims  their  old  demand  that  the 
Hanseatic  merchants  should  no  longer  be  favoured  at 
their  expense,  but  should  be  treated  like  any  other 
foreigners  and  forced  to  pay  the  same  tolls  on  wine 
and  wool.  There  was  a  chance  of  success,  for  Liibeck 
and  the  western  towns  finding  in  their  strength  and 
self-reliance  arguments  for  a  policy  of  peace  with 
England,  were  generally  for  amicable  compromise ; 
though  the  eastern  towns  led  by  Danzig,  weaker  at  sea 
and  peculiarly  sensitive  to  any  increase  of  money 
burdens,  preferred  fighting  to  submission  with  its  appre- 
hended dangers.2  The  party  of  violence  won  the  day 
and  a  fierce  maritime  war  followed  with  open  hostili- 
ties and  reprisals  and  law-suits  and  endless  negotia- 
tions. On  one  occasion  the  English  seized  a  fleet  of 
LOS  sail  returning  to  Liibeck  and  Riga,  and  the  men 
of  the  Hanse  retaliated  by  laying  hands  on  rich 
English  prizes.  Trade  was  so  ruined  that  Henry  the 
Sixth  declared  himself  unable  to  pay  to  the  Count 
Palatine  the  dowry  of  his  aunt  Lady  Blanche,  because 
there  were  now  no  dues  and  customs  coming  into  his 

o 

Treasury  from  the  German  merchants.3     At  last  the 

1   Keutgen,  30. 

-  Ibid.    84-5,    70-71.     For    these    negotiations    see    Rymer's 
Fnedera,  x.  656-7,  666-70,  753.     Bekynton,  i.  2!  5. 
3  In  1439.      Bekynton's  Corres.  i.  1S3-4. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  109 

dispute  came  to  a  climax  in  1469,  when  the  English 
quarrelled  with  the  German  traders  in  London,  sum- 
moned them  before  the  courts  and  imposed  a  fine  of 
£13,520,1  while  members  of  the  Steel  Yard  were 
thrown  into  prison,  and  the  corporation  nearly  broken 
up.2  The  answer  of  Bremen,  Hamburg,  and  Danzig 
was  given  in  a  fleet  which  gathered  against  England 
under  the  leadership  of  Charles  the  Bold.  But  just 
at  this  moment  came  the  English  revolution  by  which 
Edward  the  Fourth  was  driven  out  of  the  country, 
and  all  the  great  trading  bodies,  the  Hanseatic  League, 
and  the  Flemish  and  Dutch  corporations,  seeing  the 
danger  which  threatened  their  commerce  from  the  new 
political  situation,  cast  aside  minor  quarrels  and  united 
to  set  Edward  aa'ain  on  the  throne.3  Such  a  service 


•&• 


1  "  Whereof    the   payment    was   kept   secret   from   writers " 
(Fabyan,  657.) 

2  The  fortunes  of  Memling's  Last  Judgement  now  at  Danzig 
give  a  curious  illustration  of  this  war  and  the  trade  complications 
of  the  time.     Ordered  at  Bruges  through  the  Florentine  agents 
there  (the  Portinari),  probably  by  Julian  and  Lorenzo  de  Medici, 
the  picture  could  not  be  carried  to  Florence  on  account  of  this  war 
begun  in  1468.     At  last  in  1473  it  was  sent  off  from  Sluys  in  a 
British-built  ship,  which  had  been  bought  by  English  merchants 
as  a  French  prize,  chartered  by  Florentines  in  Bruges  for  a  voyage 
to  London,  registered  in  the  name  of  the  Portinari,  commissioned 
by  a  French  captain,  and  navigated  under  the   Burgundian  flag 
for  greater  security  against  capture.     It  was,  however,  taken  off 
Southampton  by  a  privateer  sailing  under  the  Danzig  flag   and 
commanded  by  a  noted    captain  Benecke.     In    spite  of   a    bull 
issued  by  Sixtus  the  Fourth  the  cargo  was  sold  at  Stade  and  the 
picture  brought  by  the  owners  of  the  ship  to  Danzig.    (Crowe  and 
Cavalcaselle,  Early  Flemish  Painters,  257-260.) 

3  Henry  the  Sixth,  on  the  other  hand,  brought  the  help  of  the 
Genoese.     Possibly  the  excessive  price  of  fish  mentioned  in  the 


110          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

demanded  a  great  reward  ;  and  in  1474  a  treaty  was 
signed  at  Utrecht,  by  which  the  Hanse  was  given  back 
all  its  earlier  privileges,  and  secured  in  possession  of 
its  Guild  Hall  and  Steel  Yard  in  London,  and  its  houses 
in  Boston  and  Lynn.  The  Adventurers  who  made  a 
bold  demand  that  the  Easterlings  should  renounce  the 
right  of  carrying  out  wool  or  wTool-fells  from  England 
can  scarcely  have  expected  to  succeed ;  but  they  at 
least  gained  some  measure  of  peace  for  their  colony  in 
Danzig.1 

The  Hanseatic  League,  however,  had  now  come  to 
an  end  of  its  triumphs.  From  this  time  the  English 
pressed  them  hard.  A  law  which  forbade  the  import 
of  silk  and  the  export  of  undressed  cloths  struck  a 
heavy  blow  at  their  trade.  Then  came  the  order  that 
Rhine  wine  must  only  be  carried  in  English  ships. 
Officials  used  their  infinite  powers  of  annoyance 
with  hearty  good  will,  and  the  merchant  who  landed 
with  his  goods,  harassed  first  by  the  relentless  officers 
sitting  at  the  receipt  of  custom,  and  then  thwarted  in 
every  possible  way  by  the  Mayor  and  corporation,2 
was  at  last  driven  by  public  abuse  behind  the  walls  of 
the  Steel  Yard,  so  that  in  1490  a  member  of  the  Hanse 
dared  scarcely  show  himself  in  the  streets  of  London. 

Meanwhile  the  great  confederation  of  Common- 
wealths itself  showed  grave  signs  of  falling  asunder. 
The  bigger  towns  that  no  longer  needed  the  protection 
of  the  association  were  quite  ready  to  forsake  it,  and  in 

Paston  Letters  in  1471  may  have  been  caused  by  the  political 
troubles  (iii.  22,  254). 

1  Schanz,  i.  172-9  ;  ii.  388-396.     Pauli's  Pictures,  185-7. 

2  Schanz,  i,  186. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  111 

1501  began  to  refuse  to  bring  their  cloth  to  the  Staple 
at  Bruges,  and  to  look  for  freer  conditions  of  trade.  At 
the  same  time  the  monopoly  of  the  League  was  being 
threatened  on  all  sides.  The  Prussian  and  Livonian 
towns  treated  them  as  enemies.  A  Dutch  fleet 
competed  with  them  in  the  Baltic.  A  Danish 
trading  company  had  risen  to  dispute  their  monopoly 
in  Denmark.  The  Swedes  shut  them  out.  The  Nor- 
wegians made  intermittent  experiments  at  independ- 
ence. At  last  in  1478  came  the  worst  calamity  that 
could  befall  their  trade,  the  capture  of  Novgorod  by 
the  Muscovites,  with  the  destruction  of  its  free 
government  and  the  ruin  of  its  position  as  one  of  the 
commercial  capitals  of  the  world. 

With  the  demolition  of  the  League  factory,  the  loss 
of  all  its  possessions  in  the  city,  and  the  whole  dis- 
location of  the  Eastern  traffic,  the  supremacy  of  the 
Hanseatic  Confederation  was  shattered,  as  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  Italians  in  the  Southern  trade  had  been 
shattered  half  a  century  before  by  the  conquest  of 
Alexandria.  English  Adventurers  naturally  saw  in 
every  fresh  trouble  that  assailed  their  rivals  a  new 
argument  for  aggression,  and  welcomed  in  Henry  the 
Seventh  a  leader  equal  to  the  great  occasion.  Never 
had  they  found  a  better  friend,  or  one  who  so  finely 
interpreted  the  popular  instinct  of  his  time.  How 
completely  his  determination  to  strengthen  by  every 
means  in  his  power  the  position  of  the  Adventurers 
in  Antwerp  against  the  Hanseatic  traders  at  Bruges, 
and  to  bind  England  and  Burgundy  together  into 
a  united  commercial  state,  fell  in  with  the  needs 
and  temper  of  his  people  was  strikingly  shown  after 


112          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

a  two  years'  interruption  of  commerce  with  the  Low 
Countries  caused  by  the  affair  of  Perkin  Warbeck, 
when  a  burst  of  popular  joy  hailed  the  renewal  of 
trade,  and  the  wild  enthusiasm  of  the  people  gave  to 
tlit?  treaty  of  1496  which  restored  the  old  kindly  re- 
lations the  high-sounding  name  of  the  Intercursus 
Magnus. 

The  big  name  has,  as  usual,  imposed  a  little  on 
later  generations,  and  greater  treaties  have  gone  un- 
noticed for  want  of  an  equally  pompous  title.  At  first, 
indeed,  amid  the  political  disquiet  and  the  trade  de- 
pression which  marked  the  early  years  of  his  reign, 
Henry  went  to  work  slowly  and  patiently,  and  in 
1486  even  confirmed  the  Utrecht  treaty  of  1474  which 
ensured  a  number  of  privileges  to  the  Hanse.  But 
this  policy  of  peace  was  only  assumed  for  a  brief  space 
while  he  was  making  ready  for  war.  In  1486  he 
renewed  the  commercial  treaty  made  by  Edward  with 
Britanny  in  1467.1  The  real  campaign,  however, 
may  be  said  to  have  opened  by  the  Navigation 
Act  of  1489,  when  the  shipping  trade  wTas  definitely 
taken  under  State  protection.  And  what  that 
State  protection  implied  was  at  once  shown  in  a 
series  of  commercial  treaties  with  almost  every  trading 
country  of  Europe,  whether  its  traffic  lay  in  the 
northern  or  the  southern  seas.  Building  up  on  every 
hand  alliances  against  the  Hanseatic  Confederation  he 
steadily  drew  to  himself  the  friendship  of  the  Scandi- 
navian peoples  tired  of  the  domination  of  the  League. 
In  1489  he  sent  an  embassy  (two  of  the  deputation 
being  Lynn  merchants),  to  make  terms  for  a  com- 

1  Schanz,  i.  294. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  113 

mercial  alliance  with  Denmark  and  Norway,  and 
won  from  the  Northern  powers  freedom  of  trade  for 
the  English  in  Denmark,  Norway,  and  Iceland, 
with  the  right  to  acquire  land,  to  form  corporations 
and  choose  aldermen,  and  to  be  under  special  pro- 
tection of  the  Danish  King.1  To  defeat  the  preten- 
sions of  Danzig  he  turned  to  the  Livonian  towns, 
and  by  treaty  with  Eiga  attempted  to  secure  a  Kus- 
sian  trade  which  might  open  the  way  of  Novgorod 
and  the  East  to  English  Adventurers — an  attempt 
which  however  was  frustrated  a  few  years  later.2  A 
conference  was  held  in  1491  at  Antwerp  with  the 
Hanseatic  envoys,  whom  Henry  with  diplomatic  inso- 
lence kept  idly  waiting  for  four  weeks  till  the  mes- 
sengers he  had  sent  to  Denmark  with  friendly  proposals 
of  a  treaty  as  unfavourable  as  possible  to  the  interests 
of  the  Hanse,  returned  with  their  answer.  The  pro- 
mise of  this  inauspicious  opening  for  the  League  was 
amply  fulfilled  in  the  long  negotiations  which  lasted 
at  Antwerp  from  1491  to  1499,  and  in  which  the 
foreigner  was  consistently  humbled  before  the  trium- 
phant Merchant  Adventurer,  all  his  compromises 
rejected  so  far  as  they  tended  to  limit  the  freedom  of 
the  English  trader,  and  the  League  compelled  to  accept 
terms  ruinous  to  its  interests  and  disastrous  to  its  great 
tradition  of  supremacy.3 

1  Schanz,  i.  257.  2  Schanz,  i.  237-42. 

3  For  the  negotiations  between  the  Easterlings  and  the  English 
merchants,  see  Schanz,  ii.  397-430  ;  i.  179-201.  In  1498  Arch- 
duke Philip,  seeing  the  utter  ruin  into  which  Bruges  had  fallen, 
tried  to  revive  it  hy  ordering  that  all  foreign  merchants  should 
do  their  business  there  only,  by  improving  the  harbour,  and  by 

VOL.  I  I 


114          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

The  story  of  these  Antwerp  negotiations  gives  us 
a  true  measure  of  the  place  gained  during  the  last 
hundred  years  by  the  Merchant  Adventurers  in  the 
North,  where,  having  dealt  the  last  blows  to  the  ancient 
company  of  the  Staple,  and  broken  the  power  of  the 
Hanseatic  League,  their  fleets  now  sailed  triumph- 
antly on  every  sea.  And  yet  this  was  but  half  their 
work ;  for  the  North  was  a  small  thing  to  win  unless 
they  could  also  load  English  vessels  with  the  cargoes 
of  the  East  and  the  tribute  of  the  great  commercial 
cities  of  the  Mediterranean.  Until  the  middle  of  the 
fifteenth  century  the  trade  of  the  eastern  Mediter- 
ranean had  been  altogether  carried  on  by  Italians.1 
It  was  only  in  1432  that  the  French  merchant 
Jacques  Coeur  (the  stories  of  whose  wealth  and  power 
read  like  fables  beside  the  modest  doings  of  our  native 
traders),  had  sent  out  some  ships  to  take  part  in  the 
Eastern  trade  ;  and  the  Levant  was  not  really  opened 
to  Western  merchants  till  1442,  when  the  Venetians 
were  driven  out  of  Egypt  and  the  monopoly  of  the 

making  it  the  Staple,  for  English  cloths  in  Flanders.  (Schanz,  i. 
26-27.)  In  1501  Philip  made  Bruges  a  Staple  where  English  cloth 
might  be  sold  in  Flanders  under  strict  conditions.  (Ibid.  ii.  203-6.) 
In  1506  Henry  won  from  the  Archduke  the  right  to  sell  cloth 
by  the  yard  and  to  have  the  manufacture  of  it  finished  in  all  his 
dominions  except  Flanders.  (Ibid.  i.  31.) 

1  The  friendly  way  in  which  the  English  merchants  even  in 
1 405  looked  on  Genoese  traders  is  illustrated  in  the  story  told 
by  Fabyan  (571),  of  three  carracks  of  Genoa  laden  with  mer- 
chandise plundered  by  English  lords.  The  Genoese  merchants 
made  suit  to  the  King  for  compensation,  and  meanwhile  borrowed 
from  English  merchants  goods  amounting  unto  great  and  noble 
sums.  When  their  suit  was  seen  to  be  in  vain  they  made  off 
with  their  spoils  "  to  the  undoing  "  of  many  merchants. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  115 

Italians  broken  up.  It  was  very  soon  after  that  a 
Bristol  merchant,  Sturmys,  fitted  out  probably  the  first 
English  ship  that  visited  the  Eastern  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean.  But  the  new  inheritors  of  the  East 
were  received  with  bitter  jealousies.  Kival  vessels 
fought  for  the  spoils  and  carried  off  the  booty  like 
common  pirates ;  and  the  Genoese  traders  in  their  anger 
seized  Sturmys'  ship  on  its  return  voyage  and  robbed 
it  of  its  cargo  of  spices  and  green  pepper.  He 
reckoned  his  loss  at  6,000  francs,  and  on  his  com- 
plaint to  the  government  all  the  Genoese  merchants 
in  London  were  thrown  into  prison  until  they  should 
give  bonds  for  the  payment  of  this  sum.1 

The  question  of  the  Mediterranean  was  thus  vigor- 
ously opened.  In  London,  indeed,  the  Italians  might 
securely  reckon  on  hard  treatment.  Merchants  just 
beginning  to  feel  their  strength,  half-ruined  Staplers, 
London  shopkeepers  and  manufacturers,  all  alike 
hated  their  Italian  rivals  with  a  common  hatred,  and 
were  crying  out  for  the  most  decisive  measures  against 
foreign  competition.  Less  careful  than  their  King  of 
nursing  political  alliances  2  in  view  of  foreign  wars  and 
complications,  the  traders  boldly  proposed  a  bill  in  the 
Parliament  of  1439  to  forbid  the  Venetians  from 
carrying  any  wares  save  those  of  their  own  manufac- 
ture— a  measure  which  if  it  had  passed  would  have 

1  Hunt's  Bristol,  97-8. 

2  For  the  anxiety  as  to  the   friendship  of  powerful  maritime 
states  see  the  French  boast  of  the  alliance  of  Spain  and  Genoa ; 
Heralds'  Debate,  59.    It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  both  Edward 
the  Fourth  and  Henry  the  Seventh  preferred  Florence  to  Venice. 
Disputes  about  the  Venetian  wool  trade  under  Henry  the  Sixth 
are  mentioned  in  Bekynton's  Corresp.  i.  126-9. 

I  2 


116          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

practically  annihilated  the  whole  Venetian  trade  to 
England.  Their  next  proposal  was  a  law  to  forbid 
selling  anything  to  the  Genoese  or  carrying  anything 
to  their  port.  Steadily  supported  as  the  Lombards 
were  by  the  King  against  the  people,  they  nevertheless 
saw  their  privileges  from  this  time  limited  step  by 
step;  and  once  after  the  persecution  of  1455  in 
London  even  attempted  to  leave  the  capital  for  ever. 
The  great  days  of  their  trade  monopoly  were  gone. 
Edward  the  Fourth  and  Kichard  the  Third  laid  heavy 
burdens  on  them.  Henry  the  Seventh  kept  them 
dependent  on  his  arbitrary  will  for  a  very  slight  in- 
crease of  freedom,  such  as  he  might  see  fit  to  grant 
from  time  to  time,  tried  to  limit  their  gains,  and  in  the 
very  first  year  of  his  reign  forbade  them  to  carry 
French  woad  or  wine,  or  silk  goods,  and  further  hind- 
ered them  in  the  export  of  wool. 

At  this  time  the  population  of  the  Venetian  Re- 
public was  bigger  than  that  of  all  England,  and  Eng- 
lish traders  had  a  good  many  other  affairs  on  their 
hands  beside  their  quarrel  with  Venice.  The  dispute, 
nevertheless,  did  not  languish.  No  sooner  were 
Henry's  regulations  proclaimed  in  1485  than  English 
merchants  set  sail  for  Crete,  bought  up  the  stores  of 
malmsey  there,1  and  carried  them  off  to  the  Nether- 
lands under  the  very  eyes  of  the  Venetian  captains. 
Venice  passed  a  law  against  such  traffic,  and  in  the 
stress  of  anxiety  as  to  the  English  competition  took 
to  building  better  ships  to  maintain  her  own  carrying- 
trade  ;  while  England  retorted  by  setting  up  a  mono- 

1  The  price  of  wine  had  been  raised  in  England  by  new  rules 
about  measures. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  117 

poly  of  her   own   wool    in  revenge  for  the  Venetian 
monopoly  of  wine. 

Meanwhile,  the  quick-witted  Florentines,  driven 
out  of  traditional  routine  by  the  intensity  of  the 
long  competition  for  supremacy,  had  begun  to  doubt 
the  value  for  them  of  the  old  policy  of  naval 
protection  which  the  city  had  shared  with  Venice  and 
Genoa  ;  and  had  frankly  adopted  in  1480  a  system  of 
free-trade.  In  Constantinople  and  Egypt  Florence 
began  again  to  hold  her  own  against  Venice  and  to  win 
back  command  of  Eastern  markets,  and  she  eagerly 
welcomed  English  wool  merchants  to  her  port  at  Pisa.1 
In  1485,  the  year  when  England  entered  into  the  lists 
with  Venice,  these Jhad  become  so  numerous  and  power- 
ful a  body  that  a  consul  was  appointed  over  them ; 
and  five  years  later,  Henry  made  a  commercial  treaty 
with  Florence  which  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
acts  of  his  reign.  By  its  provisions  English  merchants 
undertook  to  carry  every  year  to  Florence  sufficient 
wool  to  supply  all  the  Italian  States  save  Venice,  and 
in  return  they  were  given  every  privilege  their  hearts 
desired.2  The  only  resource  left  to  the  Venetians  was 

1  A  pilgrim  to  Rome  in  1477  got  letters  in  London  on  the 
bank  of  Jacobo  di  Medici.     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  vi.  361.) 

2  1.   English  merchants  might  trade  freely  with  Florence  in 
all  kinds  of  wares  of  home  or  foreign  origin. 

2.  The  Florentines  promised  to  buy  no  wool  save  from  English 
ships.     The  English  on  their  side  were  bound  to  carry  yearly  to 
Pisa  an  average  quantity  for  all  the  Italian  states  save  Venice. 
In  Pisa  they  were  to  have  all  the  privileges  of  inhabitants  and 
to  have  land  for  a  building. 

3.  The  English  were  to  be  free  from  personal  services  and  from 
taxes  which  might  be  raised  on  trade. 

4.  The  merchants  might  form  a  corporation  in  Pisa. 


118         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUKY       CHAP. 

to  forbid  that  any  wine  should  be  shipped  from  Crete 
to  Pisa,  so  that  English  vessels  which  went  out  laden 
with  wool  finding  no  return  cargo  should  be  driven 
to  sail  home  empty.  Henry  immediately  set  such 
heavy  import  duties  on  malmsey  in  England  that 
the  Venetians,  seeing  their  wine-trade  on  the  point  of 
ruin,  bowed  at  last  to  the  inevitable.  The  victory  of 
the  English  merchants  was  finally  proclaimed  when 
Henry  in  1507  only  consented  to  renew  the  charter 
that  gave  Venetians  rights  of  trade  in  England  on 
condition  that  they  bound  themselves  to  do  no  carry- 
ing trade  between  the  Netherlands  and  England,  but 
to  leave  that  to  the  Merchant  Adventurers.1 

Meanwhile,  in  all  the  ports  visited  by  English  ships 
between  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Channel  the  same 
buoyant  spirit  of  successful  enterprise  vanquished 
every  obstacle.  Englishmen  had  always  traded  much 
with  their  fellow-subjects  in  Aquitaine.  From  the 
days  of  St.  Thomas  Canterbury  had  dealings  with  the 
wine-growers  of  the  south.2  Ships  of  Bordeaux  were 

5.  Quarrels  between  Englishmen  to  be  settled  by  their  own 
head.     Quarrels  between  an  Englishman  and  a  foreigner  to  be 
decided  by  the  municipality  and  the   English  consul.     Criminal 
cases  by  the  municipality  alone. 

6.  The  English  to  share  all  advantages  the  Florentines  might 
win  by  trading  treaties. 

7.  The  wishes  of  the  English  to  be  considered  in  all  new  priv- 
ileges granted  in  the  Florentine  dominions. 

8.  The  English  King  was  to  allow  no  stranger  to  carry  wool 
out  of  England.     The  Venetians  only  might  carry  600  sacks. 

9.  The  wool    was  to    be    of    good    quality   and  well  packed. 
(Schanz,  i.  126-137.) 

1  Schanz,  i.  119-U2  ;  7  Henry  VII.  c.  7. 

2  An  interesting  account  of  this  is  given  in  Hist.  MSS.  Com. 
v.  461. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  119 

known  in  every  port  of  the  Channel,  and  in  1350,  141 
vessels  laden  with  wine  sailed  thence  to  London  alone,1 
while  the  early  wealth  of  Bristol  had  been  created  by 
the  cargoes  of  wool  carried  from  its  port  to  feed  the 
Gascon  manufactories,  and  the  casks  of  wine  sent  back 
to  fill  its  cellars.  Conditions  so  pleasant  for  the  Bristol 
burghers  were  rudely  changed  when  in  1445  Bordeaux 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  French,  and  English  traders 
instead  of  being  the  masters  had  to  go  humbly  at  the 
bidding  of  the  men  of  Bordeaux  with  a  red  cross  on 
their  backs,  doing  business  only  in  the  town,  or  going 
into  the  country  under  the  guardianship  of  a  police 
-agent.  But  if  the  burghers  of  the  later  fifteenth  cen- 
tury cared  nothing  for  the  re-conquest  of  the  French 
provinces,  on  the  other  hand  they  were  determined 
not  to  lose  their  trade.  The  wool  dealers,  shut  out 
of  Bordeaux,  turned  to  the  North,  to  Rouen  and 
{Calais,  changed  their  wool  there  for  the  wine  of 
Niederburgund,  and  so  started  the  woollen  manu- 
factures of  Normandy,  while  those  of  Bordeaux 
declined.  By  a  succession  of  commercial  treaties  2 
and  by  the  Navigation  Act  of  1489,  which  shut  out 
Gascon  ships  from  the  English  wine  trade,  Heniy 
secured  for  English  merchants  in  Bordeaux  such 
adequate  protection  that  the  efforts  of  Louis  the 
Twelfth  to  limit  their  freedom  of  trade  by  passing 
a  Navigation  Act  of  his  own  were  utterly  vain. 
The  Bordeaux  citizens,  filled  with  impotent  rage, 

1  Schanz,  i.  298. 

2  In  1475,  1486,  and  1495.     (Schanz,  i.  299-304.)     In   1475 
.a    proclamation  in  Cinque  Ports    forbade    Englishmen    to    buy 
Gascon  wine  of  an  alien.     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  494.) 


120          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

watched  the  English  traders  going  up  and  down  the 
land,  6,000  to  8,000  of  them,  as  they  averred,  armed 
with  sticks,  and  scouring  the  country  for  wine. 

The  ports  of  Spain  and  Portugal  also  were  visited 
by  increasing  numbers  of  English  vessels  on  their  way 
to  the  Mediterranean,  and  old  trading  alliances  were 
renewed  with  countries  whose  harbours  were  such 
valuable  resting  places.1  There  had  long  been  com- 
mercial treaties  with  Castile  and  Catalonia,  who  com- 
peted for  the  profits  to  be  won  by  carrying  to  England 
Spanish  iron  and  fruits  along  with  the  wine  and 
woad  of  neighbouring  lands.  But  Henry  the  Seventh 
took  the  occasion  of  the  negotiations  for  the  Spanish 
marriage  in  1489  to  stipulate  anew  for  freedom  of  trade 
and  protection  of  English  ships ;  while  at  the  same 
time  the  English  merchants  asserted  that  by  the  new 
Navigation  Act  the  whole  export  trade  was  now  their 
exclusive  right,  and  under  the  plea  that  their  ships 
could  not  make  the  voyage  to  Spain  unless  they  had 
a  certainty  of  coming  back  well  laden,  forbade  the 
carrying  of  Toulouse  woad  and  Gascony  wine  in  Span- 
ish ships.  By  this  time  the  Englishman  had  as  usual 
roused  the  fear  and  hatred  of  the  native  merchants, 
and  the  Spaniards  violently  resisted  the  new  policy. 
Heavy  tolls  were  imposed  on  either  side  to  ruin  the 
trade  of  the  other,  and  in  one  season  eight  hundred 
English  ships  were  sent  home  empty  from  Seville 
because  the- patriotic  Spanish  dealers  with  one  accord 

1  An  interesting  trace  of  foreign  connections  is  given  in  the 
will  of  Wm.  Rowley,  who  left  money  to  a  parish  church  and 
a  nunnery  at  Dam  in  Flanders,  and  to  two  places  in  Spain.  (Histv 
MSS.  Com.  v.  326.) 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  121 

refused  their  wares  to  the  enemy.  Again  fortune  came 
to  help  the  pertinacity  of  the  Adventurers.  In  1492 
Spain  drove  the  Jews  and  Moors  from  her  shores.  But 
their  business  simply  fell  into  alien  hands  waiting  to 
receive  it,  and  the  hated  English  merchants  flocked  to 
Spanish  harbours  now  swept  of  their  old  rivals,  and 
sailed  back  to  England  laden  with  the  gold  of  the 
New  World.1 

Nor  was  the  good  chance  that  favoured  them  in 
Portugal  less  wonderful.  With  the  traders  of  Lisbon 
and  Oporto  England  had  entered  into  a  commercial 
treaty  in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century — a 
treaty  which  was  altered  in  1386  to  include  the  whole 
of  Portugal.2  But  by  some  happy  destiny  whose 
favours  strewed  the  path  of  English  traders,  they  asked 
and  obtained  in  1458  a  revision  of  old  agreements  so  as 
to  secure  the  utmost  advantage  for  their  own  interests, 
and  all  this  had  been  completed  just  before  the  dis- 
covery of  the  Cape  route  gave  to  Portugal  its  enorm- 
ous naval  importance  and  threw  Eastern  commerce 
into  a  new  channel.  The  quarrel  with  Venice  inspired 
the  English  with  increased  ardour  in  their  friendship 
for  the  new  masters  of  the  spice  trade ;  and  when 
Portuguese  dealers  invited  English  merchants  to  make 
their  bargains  for  Eastern  wares  in  Lisbon  instead  of 
journeying  to  Venice,  these  gathered  in  such  numbers 
to  the  new  emporium  of  Indian  goods  that  their 
own  shipping  failed  to  carry  the  wealth  offered  to 

1  Schanz,  i.  275-7. 

2  Ibid.  i.  285-90.     The  Portuguese  were  among  those  who  were 
allowed  to  export  woollen  cloths  under  Henry  the  Sixth.    (Proc. 
Privy  Council,  v.  ii.  11.) 


122          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY        CHAP. 

them  and  the  merchants  had  to  hire  Portuguese 
vessels.1 

Thus  it  was  that  in  the  face  of  the  powerful  con- 
federations that  held  the  trade  of  the  Northern  and 
the  Southern  Seas  English  merchants  were  laying 
violent  hands  on  the  commerce  of  the  world.  They 
had  vanquished  their  rivals  in  the  north,  while  in  the 
south  they  had  firmly  planted  themselves  in  every 
important  trading  port  along  the  western  coast  of 
Europe,  and  competed  with  the  Italian  Republics 
not  only  for  their  own  carrying  trade  but  for  that 
of  the  Netherlands  as  well.  If  in  the  reign  of  Edward 
the  Third  practically  the  whole  of  the  foreign  com- 
merce of  England  was  carried  in  foreign  vessels,  in 
the  reign  of  Henry  the  Seventh  the  great  bulk  of  the 
trade  had  passed  into  English  hands.  British  mer- 
chants were  to  be  found  in  every  port  from  Alexandria 
to  Reykjavik,  and  wherever  they  touched  left  behind 
them  an  organized  and  firmly  established  trade.  As 
we  have  seen,  their  battle  for  supremacy  in  commerce 
had  in  its  beginnings  been  fought  by  free-traders 

O  J 

and  pirates  warring  against  the  orderly  forces  of 
organized  protection ;  but  the  final  victory  was 
awarded  to  them  in  their  later  stage  of  a  company  of 
monopolists  sustained  and  cherished  by  the  State. 
The  question,  indeed,  of  how  far  protection  con- 
tributed to  the  success  of  the  English  or  to  the  loss 
of  the  foreigner  is  far  from  being  a  simple  one.  For 

1  Notices  of  English  trade  with  Portugal  in  the  second  half  of 
the  fifteenth  century  may  be  found  in  the  complaints  of  the 
merchants  ;  Schanz,  ii.  496-524.  For  Portuguese  in  Lydd  in 
1456,  Hist.  MSS.  Corn.  v.  521. 


in  THE  COMMERCIAL  REVOLUTION  123 

in  its  first  stages  the  work  done  by  protection  may 
possibly  consist  for  a  time  mainly  in  the  abolition  of 
privilege,  and  this  process  may  pass  by  very  slow 
and  imperceptible  degrees  to  its  last  stage,  that  of 
conferring  privilege.  It  is,  therefore,  hard  to  decipher 
the  lesson  when  we  are  studying  a  commerce  where 
protection  has  but  begun  its  work  in  conflict  with  a 
commerce  when  that  work  is  perfected.  In  the  his- 
tory of  the  later  fifteenth  century,  moreover,  the  prob- 
lem is  yet  further  complicated  by  the  present  work- 
ing of  those  vast  forces  which  make  or  unmake  the 
fortunes  of  continents,  and  before  which  the  wisest 
policies  of  States,  policies  of  protection  or  of  free- 
trade  or  of  any  other  elaborate  product  of  human 
intelligence,  are  powerful  as  an  army  of  phantoms. 


CHAPTER  IV 


WE  who  have  been  trained  under  the  modern 
system  have  forgotten  how  people  lived  in  the  old 
days,  wThen  the  necessity  of  personal  effort  was  forced 
home  to  every  single  member  of  the  fellowship  of 
freemen  who  had  life  or  liberties  or  property  to  protect. 
For  in  spite  of  the  vigour  and  independence  of  our 
modern  local  administration  every  Englishman  now 
looks  ultimately  for  the  laws  that  rule  his  actions,  and 
the  force  that  protects  his  property,  to  the  great 
central  authority  which  has  grown  up  outside  and 
beyond  all  local  authorities.  He  is  subject  to  it  in  all 
the  circumstances  of  life ;  whether  it  exercises  wholly 
new  functions  unknown  to  the  middle  ages ;  or  takes 
over  to  itself  powers  which  once  belonged  to  inferior 
bodies,  and  makes  them  serve  national  instead  of 
local  ends ;  whether  it  asserts  a  new  direction  and 
control  over  municipal  administration ;  or  whether, 
instead  of  replacing  the  town  authorities  by  its  own 
rule,  it  upholds  them  with  the  support  of  its  vast 


CH.  iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  125 

resources  and  boundless  strength.  By  whatever  right 
the  State  holds  its  manifold  powers,  whether  by 
inheritance,  or  purchase,  or  substitution,  or  influence, 
or  the  superiority  of  mere  might,  he  feels  its  working 
on  every  hand.  It  is  to  him  visibly  charged  with  all 
the  grand  operations  of  government. 

But  to  a  burgher  of  the  middle  ages  the  care  and 
protection  of  the  State  were  dim  and  shadowy  com- 
pared with  the  duties  and  responsibilities  thrown  on 
the  townspeople  themselves.  For  in  the  beginnings 
of  municipal  life  the  affairs  of  the  borough  great 
and  small,  its  prosperity,  its  safety,  its  freedom 
from  crime,  the  gaiety  and  variety  of  its  life,  the 
regulation  of  its  trade,  were  the  business  of  the 
citizens  alone.  Fenced  in  by  its  wall  and  ditch *- 
fenced  in  yet  more  effectually  by  the  sense  of 
danger  without,  and  the  clinging  to  privileges  won 
by  common  effort  that  separated  it  from  the  rest 
of  the  world — the  town  remained  isolated  and  self- 
dependent.  Within  these  narrow  borders  the  men 
who  went  out  to  win  the  carrying  trade  of  the 
world  learned  their  first  lessons  in  organization,  and 
acquired  the  temper  by  virtue  of  which  Englishmen 
were  to  build  up  at  home  a  great  political  society 

1  In  Piers  Ploughman  a  graphic  illustration  is  taken  from  the 
mediaeval  borough  thus  isolated  and  protected. 

"  He  cried  and  commanded  all  Christian  people 
To  delve  and  dike  a  deep  ditch  all  about  unity, 
That  Holy  Church  stood  in  holiness  as  it  were  a  pile. 
Conscience  commanded  then  all  Christians  to  delve, 
And  make  a  great  moat  that  might  be  a  strength 
To  help  holy  Church  and  them  that  it  keepeth." 

—Pass.  xxii.  364-386. 


126          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP, 

and  to  conquer  abroad  the  supremacy  of  the  seas — 
the  temper  which  we  recognize  in  an  early  confession 
of  faith  put  forth  by  the  citizens  of  Hereford  as  to- 
the  duties  which  a  man  owed  to  his  commonwealth 
and  to  its  chief  magistrate.  "And  he  to  be  our 
head  next  under  the  King,  whom  we  ought  in  all 
things  touching  our  King  or  the  state  of  our 
city  to  obey  chiefly  in  three  things — first,  when 
we  are  sent  for  by  day  or  by  night  to  consult 
of  those  things  which  appertain  to  the  King  or  the 
state  of  the  city ;  secondly,  to  answer  if  we  offend 
in  any  point  contrary  to  our  oath, '  or  our  fellow- 
citizens  ;  thirdly,  to  perform  the  affairs  of  the  city  at 
our  own  charges,  if  so  be  they  may  be  finished  either 
sooner  or  better  than  by  any  other  of  our  citizens"  l 
Public  claims  were  insistent,  and  under  the  primitive 
conditions  of  communal  life,  in  small  societies 
where  every  man  lived  in  the  direct  light  of  public 
opinion,  no  citizen  was  allowed  to  count  carefully  the 
cost  of  sacrifice,  or  stint  the  measure  of  his  service, 
when  the  welfare  of  his  little  community  was  at 
stake.  His  duties  were  plainly  laid  down  before  him, 
and  they  were  rigidly  exacted.  According  to  the 
accepted  theory  it  was  understood  that  all  private 
will  and  advantage  were  to  be  sacrificed  to  the  com- 
mon good,  and  Langland  speaks  bitterly  of  the 
"  individualists  "  of  his  day. 

"  For  they  will  and  would  as  best  were  for  themselves, 
Though  the  King  and  the  commons  all  the  cost  had. 
All  reason  reproveth  such  imperfect  people."  2 

1  Journ.  Arch.  Assoc.  xxvii.  461. 

2  Piers  Ploughman,  passus  iv.  386. 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  127 

I.  The  inhabitants  of  a  mediaeval  borough  were 
subject  to  a  discipline  as  severe  as  that  of  a  military 
state  of  modern  times.  Threatened  by  enemies  on 
every  side,  constantly  surrounded  by  perils,  they  had 
themselves  to  bear  the  whole  charges  of  fortifica- 
tion and  defence.  If  a  French  fleet  appeared  on  the 
coast,  if  Welsh  or  Scotch  armies  made  a  raid  across 
the  frontier,  if  civil  war  broke  out  and  opposing  forces 
marched  across  the  country,  every  town  had  to  look 
to  its  own  safety.  The  inhabitants  served  under  a 
system  of  universal  conscription.  At  the  muster-at- 
arms  held  twice  a  year  poor  and  rich  appeared  in 
military  array  with  such  weapons  as  they  could  bring 
forth  for  the  King's  service  ;  the  poor  marching  with 
knife  or  dagger  or  hatchet ;  the  prosperous  burghers, 
bound  according  to  mediaeval  ideas  to  live  "  after  their 
degree,"  displaying  mail  or  wadded  coats,  bucklers, 
bows  and  arrows,  swords,  or  even  a  gun.  At  any 
moment  this  armed  population  might  be  called  out 
to  active  service.  "  Concerning  our  bell,"  say  the 
citizens  of  Hereford,  "  we  use  to  have  it  in  a 
public  place  where  our  chief  bailiff  may  come,  as  well 
by  day  as  by  night,  to  give  warning  to  all  men  living 
within  the  said  city  and  suburbs.  And  we  do  not  say 
that  it  ought  to  ring  unless  it  be  for  some  terrible  fire 
burning  any  row  of  houses  within  the  said  city,  or 
for  any  common  contention  whereby  the  city  might 
be  terribly  moved,  or  for  any  enemies  drawing  near 
unto  the  city,  or  if  the  city  shall  be  besieged,  or  an}' 
sedition  shall  be  between  any,  and  notice  thereof 
given  by  any  unto  our  chief  bailiff.  And  in  these 
cases  aforesaid,  and  in  all  like  cases,  all  manner  of  men 


128         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

abiding  within  the  city  and  suburbs  and  liberties 
of  the  city,  of  what  degree  soever  they  be  of,  ought 
to  come  at  any  such  ringing,  or  motion  of  ringing, 
with  such  weapons  as  fit  their  degree." *  At  the 
first  warning  of  an  enemy's  approach  the  mayor  or 
bailiff  became  supreme  military  commander.2  It 
was  his  office  to  see  that  the  panic-stricken  people  of 
the  suburbs  were  gathered  within  the  walls  and 
given  house  and  food,  that  all  meat  and  drink  and 
chattels  were  made  over  for  the  public  service,  and  all 
armour  likewise  carried  to  the  Town  Hall,  that  every 
inhabitant  or  refugee  paid  the  taxes  required  for  the 
cost  of  his  protection,  that  all  strong  and  able  men 
"  which  doth  dwell  in  the  city  or  would  be  assisted  by 
the  city  in  anything "  watched  by  day  and  night, 
and  that  women  and  clerics  who  could  not  watch 
themselves  found  at  their  own  charge  substitutes 
"  of  the  ablest  of  the  city."3 

If  frontier  towns  had  periods  of  comparative  quiet, 
the  seaports,  threatened  by  sea  as  by  land,  lived  in 
perpetual  alarm,  at  least  so  long  as  the  Hundred  Years' 
War  protracted  its  terrors.  When  the  inhabitants 
had  built  ships  to  guard  the  harbour,  and  provided 
money  for  their  victualling  and  the  salaries  of  the 
crew,  they  were  called  out  to  repair  towers  and  carry 
cartloads  of  rocks  or  stones  to  be  laid  on  the  walls 
"  for  defending  the  town  in  resisting  the  king's 

1  Journ.  Arch.  Assoc.  xxvii.  466. 

-  "  And  Ave  use  that  during  the  siege  if  the  bailiff  be  an  unable 
and  impotent  man  or  unlearned,  to  choose  us  one  other  for  the 
time  being ;  but  not  a  far-dweller  unless  by  the  pleasure  of  the 
commonalty."  (Ibid.  488.)  See  Proc.  Privy  Council,  iv.  217. 

3  Journ.  Arch.  Assoc.  xxvii.  463,  488. 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  12!) 

enemies."  Guns  had  to  be  carried  to  the  church  or 
the  Common  House  on  sleds  or  laid  in  pits  at  the  town 
gates,  and  gun-stones,  saltpetre,  and  pellet  powder 
bought.  For  weeks  together  watchmen  were  posted 
in  the  church  towers  with  horns  to  give  warning  if  a 
foe  appeared ;  and  piles  of  straw,  reeds  and  wood 
were  heaped  up  on  the  sea-coast  to  kindle  beacons 
and  watch-fires.  Even  if  the  townsfolk  gathered  for 
a  day's  amusement  to  hear  a  play  in  the  Court-house 
a  watch  was  set  lest  the  enemy  should  set  fire  to 
their  streets — a  calamity  but  too  well  known  to  the 
burghers  of  Rye  and  Southampton.2 

Inland  towns  were  in  little  better  case.  Civil  war, 
local  rebellion,  attacks  from  some  neighbouring  lord, 
outbreaks  among  the  followers  of  a  great  noble  lodged 
within  their  walls  at  the  head  of  an  army  of  retainers, 
all  the  recurring  incidents  of  siege  and  pitched  battle 
rudely  reminded  inoffensive  shopkeepers  and  artizans 

1  In  Rye  there  was  a  tax  "  from  every  stranger,  as  though  from 
a  prisoner  taken,  payment  of  his  finance   for  his   ransom,  and 
when  he  has  entered  the  fortresses  of  the  port  for  his  passage 
thence,  3s.  4d.;  he  having  to  pay  towards  the  building  of  the 
walls  and  gates  there  what  pertains  to  the  common  weal  of  the 
town."     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  490.)     For  the  strengthening  of 
Canterbury  wall  against  the  French,   (ibid.  ix.   141.)       It    had 
twenty-one  towers  and  six  gates,  and  mayors  in  1452  and  1460 
left  money  for  the  gates.     (Da vies'  Southampton,  62-3,  80,  105. 
Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  3, 167.) 

2  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  518-24,  492-3.     The  Common  House  at 
Romney  was  only  provided  with  bows  until  in  1475  a  gun  was 
laid  on  it.     Burgesses   were  sometimes  driven   from   towns  by 
the  excessive  charges  of  war  and  of  watch  and  ward.     (Owen's 
Shrewsbury,   i.    205.)     For   Southampton,  see   Davies,    79,  80, 
Chester,  Hist,  MSS.  Com.  viii.  370. 

VOL.    I  K 


130         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP- 

of  their  military  calling.  Owing  to  causes  but  little 
studied,  local  conflicts  were  frequent,  and  they  were 
fought  out  with  violence  and  determination.  At  the 
close  of  the  fourteenth  century  a  certain  knight, 
Baldwin  of  Radington,  with  the  help  of  John  of 
Stanley,  raised  eight  hundred  fighting  men  "  to  de- 
stroy and  hurt  the  commons  of  Chester  "  ;  and  these 
stalwart  warriors  broke  into  the  abbey,  seized  the 
wine  and  dashed  the  furniture  in  pieces,  and  when  the 
mayor  and  sheriff  came  to  the  rescue  nearly  killed 
the  sheriff.1  When  in  1441  the  Archbishop  of  York 
determined  to  fight  for  his  privileges  in  Ripon  Fair  he 
engaged  two  hundred  men-at-arms  from  Scotland 
and  the  Marches  at  sixpence  or  a  shilling  a  day, 
while  a  Yorkshire  gentleman,  Sir  John  Plumpton, 
gathered  seven  hundred  men ;  and  at  the  battle  that 
ensued,  more  than  a  thousand  arrows  were  discharged 
by  them.2 

"Within  the  town  territory  the  burghers  had  to  serve 
at  their  own  cost  and  charges  ;  but  when  the  King 
called  out  their  forces  to  join  his  army  the  municipal 
officers  had  to  get  the  contingent  ready,  to  provide 
their  dress  or  badges,  to  appoint  the  captain,  and  to 
gather  in  money  from  the  various  parishes  for  the 

1  Hist.    MSS.   Com.   viii.   370.     In    1399,    when  the  master- 
weavers  and  tradesmen  came  armed  to  the  cathedral  and  led  an 
attack  on  "  William  of  Wy  bun  bur  and  Thomas  del  Dame  and 
many  of  their  servants  called  journeymen  in  a  great  affray  of  all 
the  people  of  the  city  against  the  peace  of  the  Lord  King."    Ibid. 
367.     See  also  Paston  Letters,  i.  408;     Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iv.  1, 
432. 

2  Plumpton  Correspondence,  liv.  Ixii. 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  131 

soldiers'  pay,  "  or  else  the  constables  to  be  set  in 
prison  to  abide  to  such  time  as  it  be  content  and 
paid." l  When  they  were  sent  to  a  distance  their 
fellow  townsmen  bought  provisions  of  salt  fish  and 
paniers  or  bread  boxes  for  the  carriage  of  their 
food,2  and  reluctantly  provided  a  scanty  wage,  which 
was  yet  more  reluctantly  doled  out  to  the  soldier 
by  his  officer,  and  perhaps  never  reached  his  pocket 
at  all.3  Universal  conscription  proved  then  as 
now  the  great  inculcator  of  peace.  To  the  burgher 
called  from  the  loom  and  the  dyeing  pit  and 
the  market  stall  to  take  down  his  bow  or  dagger, 
war  was  a  hard  and  ungrateful  service  where 
reward  and  plunder  were  dealt  out  with  a  nig- 
gardly hand ;  and  men  conceived  a  deep  hatred  of 
strife  and  disorder  of  which  they  had  measured  all 
the  misery.4  When  the  common  people  dreamed 
of  a  brighter  future,  their  simple  hope  was  that 

1  Da  vies'  York,  183.  For  the  directions  given  about  the 
gathering  of  troops,  see  ibid.,  152-157.  For  cost  of  arms  and 
maintenance  of  troops  to  towns,  see  Stubbs  ii.  309.  Hisi,. 
MSS.  Com.  ix.  143. 

a  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  7,  p.  171. 

3  The  authorities  of  York  decreed  that  the  soldiers  sent  on  a 
Scotch  campaign  should  be  given  their  wages  for  the  first  fourteen 
days,  and  the  captain  should  have  in  his  pocket  the  money  for 
the  second  fortnight.     The  troops  struck,  however,  and  insisted 
on  having  the  whole  twenty-eight  days'  pay  before  they  started, 
and  the  town  had  at  last  to  give  in  as  the  only  way  of  getting 
the  expedition  started.     (Davies'  York    132-7.)     The   soldiers, 
once  paid,  often  did  no  more  than  start  on  their  journey  and  then 
"  straggle  about  by  themselves"  with  their  pay  in  their  pockets. 
(Paston  Letters  ii.  1-2.) 

4  Eng.  Chronicle,  1377-1461,  pp.  71,  83,  90,  109. 

K   2 


132          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

every  maker   of    deadly  weapons  should   die  by  his 
own  tools  ;  for  in  that  better  time 

"  Battles  shall  never  eft  (again)  be,  ne  man  bear  edge-tool, 
And  if  any  man  [smithy]  it,  be  smit  therewith  to  death."  l 

II.  Nor  even  in  times  of  peace  might  the  burghers 
lay  aside  their  arms,  for  trouble  was  never  far  from 
their  streets.  Every  inhabitant  was  bound  to  have 
his  dagger  or  knife  or  Irish  "  skene,"  in  case  he  was 
called  out  to  the  king's  muster  or  to  aid  in  keeping 
the  king's  peace.  But  daggers  which  were  effective 
in  keeping  the  peace  were  equally  effective  in  break- 
ing it,  and  the  town  records  are  full  of  tales  of  brawls 
and  riots,  of  frays  begun  by  "  railing  with  words  out 
of  reason,"  or  by  "  plucking  a  man  down  by  the  hair 
of  his  head,"  but  which  always  ended  in  the  appear- 
ance of  a  short  dagger,  "  and  so  drew  blood  upon  each 
other."  2  For  the  safety  of  the  community — a  safety 
which  was  the  recognized  charge  of  every  member 
of  these  simple  democratic  states — each  householder 
was  bound  to  take  his  turn  in  keeping  nightly  watch 
and  ward  in  the  streets.  It  is  true  indeed  that  re- 

1  Piers  Ploughman,  passus  iv.  478,  479. 

"  '  Therefore  1  counsel  no  King  any  counsel  ask 
At  conscience  if  he  coveteth  to  conquer  a  realm, 
For  should  never  conscience  be  my  constable 
Were  I  a  king  y-crowned,  by  Mary,'  quoth  Meed, 
'  Nor  be  marshall  of  my  men  where  I  most  fight.' " 

—Passus  iv.  254-8. 

2  In  Canterbury,  any  man  drawing  a  knife  was  fined  or  im- 
prisoned forty  days.    (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  172.)     In  Sandwich  if 
any  one  wounded  another  with  a  sword  or  knife  he  might  choose 
one  of  three  punishments,  a  fine  of  60s.  to  the  commonalty,  im- 
prisonment for  a  year  and  a  day,  or  to  have  his  hand  perforated 
with  the  weapon  by  which  he  had  inflicted  the  wound.  (Boys  502.) 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  133 

luctant  citizens  constantly  by  one  excuse  or  another 
sought  to  escape  a  painful  and  thankless  duty  :  whether 
it  was  whole  groups  of  inhabitants  sheltering  them- 
selves behind  legal  pretexts  ;  or  sturdy  rebels  breath- 
ing out  frank  defiance  of  the  town  authorities.  Thus 
in  Aylesbury,  according  to  the  constable's  report,  one 
"  Reygg  kept  a  house  all  the  year  till  the  watch  time 
came.  And  when  he  was  summoned  to  the  watch 
then  came  Edward  Chalkyll  '  fasesying  '  and  said  he 
should  not  watch  for  no  man  and  thus  bare  him  up, 
and  that  caused  the  other  be  the  bolder  for  to  bar  the 
King's  watch.  .  .  .  He  saith  and  threateneth  us  with 
his  master,"  add  the  constables,  "  and  thus  we  be  over 
'  crakyd '  that  we  dare  not  go,  for  when  they  be 
'  may  ten  '  they  be  the  bolder."  John  Bossey  "  said 
the  same  wise  that  he  wrould  not  watch  for  us  "  ;  and 
three  others  "  lacked  each  of  them  a  night."  But  in 
such  cases  the  mayor's  authority  was  firmly  upheld  by 
the  whole  community,  every  burgher  knowing  well 

1  Parker,  Manor  of  Aylesbury,  20-21.  "Also  I  complain," 
said  one  of  them  pitifully,  "  upon  James  Fleccher  for  fraying  of  my 
wife  about  10  o'clock  in  the  night  and  I  ready  for  to  go  to  bed, 
standing  scolding  at  my  door  bidding  me  come  out  of  thy  doors 
an  thou  dare  with  his  dagger  in  his  hand  ready  to  break  the 
king's  peace."  The  prudent  constable,  however,  refrained  from 
coming  out  and  was  content  to  appeal  to  the  next  court ;  "he  is 
coming  and  therefore  I  beseech  you  of  peace  of  his  godabery." 
In  Canterbury  one  of  the  watchmen  called  to  a  person  "  walk- 
ing out  of  due  time  "  to  know  wherefore  he  walked  there  so  late. 
"  The  suspect  person  gave  none  answer,  but  ran  from  thence 
into  St.  Austin's  liberty  and  before  the  door  of  one  John  Short 
they  took  him.  And  the  same  John  Short  came  out  of  his  house 
with  other  misknown  persons  and  took  from  the  said  watchmen 
their  weapons  and  there  menaced  them  for  to  beat  contrary  to  the 
oath  of  a  true  and  faithful  freeman."  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  174.) 


134         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

that   if  any   inhabitant    shirked  his  duty   a   double 
burden  fell  upon  the  shoulder  of  his  neighbour. 

III.  All  inhabitants  of  a  borough  were  also  deeply 
interested  in  the  preservation  of  the  boundaries  which 
marked  the  extent  of  their  dominions,  the  "  liberties  " 
\vithin  which  they  could  enforce  their  own  law, 
regulate  trade,  and  raise  taxes.  Century  after  century 
the  defence  of  the  frontier  remained  one  of  the  urgent 
questions  of  town  politics,  insistent,  perpetually  recur- 
ring, now  with  craft  and  treachery,  now  with  violence 
and  heated  passion  breaking  into  sudden  flame.  Every 
year  the  mayor  and  corporation  made  a  perambula- 
tion of  the  bounds  and  inspected  the  landmarks  j1  the 
common  treasure  was  readily  poured  out  if  lawsuits 
and  bribes  were  needed  to  ascertain  and  preserve  the 

1  "  The  freemen  of  the  borough  of  Huntingdon  have  this  week 
been  engaged  in  the  observance  of  a  curious  and  ancient  local 
custom.  With  their  sons,  the  whole  of  the  freemen  of  the  borough 
have  assembled  in  the  morning  in  the  Market-place.  The  skull 
of  an  ox  borne  on  two  poles  was  placed  at  the  head  of  a  procession, 
and  then  came  the  freemen  and  their  sons,  a  certain  number  of 
them  bearing  spades  and  others  sticks.  Three  cheers  having  been 
given,  the  procession  moved  out  of  the  town  and  proceeded  to 
the  nearest  point  of  the  borough  boundary,  where  the  skull  was 
lowered.  The  procession  then  moved  along  the  boundary  line  of 
the  borough,  the  skull  being  dragged  along  the  line  as  if  it  were 
a  plough.  The  boundary  holes  were  dug  afresh,  and  a  boy  thrown 
into  each  hole  and  struck  with  a  spade.  At  a  particular  point, 
called  Blacktone  Leys,  refreshments  were  provided,  and  the  boys 
competed  for  prizes.  The  skull  was  then  again  raised  aloft,  and 
the  procession  returned  to  the  Market-place,  where  three  more 
hurrahs  were  given  before  it  broke  up."  (From  the  Pall  Mall 
Gazette,  September  16th,  1892.)  In  Hythe  Holy  Thursday  was  the 
day  of  perambulation.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iv.  i.  432.)  For  Canter- 
bury in  1497  see  Hasted's  Kent,  iv.  399-401, 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  135 

town's  rights  ;  and  if  law  failed,  the  burghers  fell  back 
without  hesitation  on  personal  force.  In  Canterbury 
the  town  and  the  convent  of  Christ  Church  were  at 
open  war  about  this  question  as  about  many  others. 
The  monks  remained  unconvinced  even  though  the 
mayor  and  council  of  thirty-six  periodically  "  walked 
the  bounds,"  giving  copper  coins  at  the  various  turning 
points  to  "  divers  children  "  that  they  might  remem- 
ber the  limits  of  the  franchise,  while  they  themselves 
were  refreshed  after  their  trouble  by  a  "  potation  "  in 
a  field  near  Fordwich.  At  one  time  the  quarrel  as  to 
the  frontier  raged  round  a  gigantic  ash-tree — the  old 
land-mark  where  the  liberties  of  the  city  touched  those 
of  Fordwich — which  was  in  1499  treacherously  cut 
down  by  the  partizans  of  Christ  Church  ;  the  Canter- 
bury men  with  the  usual  feastings  and  a  solemn 
libation  of  wine  set  up  a  new  boundary  stone.  At 
another  time  the  dispute  shifted  to  where  at  the  west 
gate  of  the  town  the  river  wound  with  uncertain  and 
changing  course  that  left  frontiers  vague  and  un- 
defined. A  low  marshy  ground  called  the  "  Hosiers  " 
was  claimed  by  the  mayor  as  under  his  jurisdiction, 
Avhile  the  prior  asserted  that  it  was  within  the  county 
of  Kent ;  and  for  thirty  years  the  question  was  fought 
out  in  the  law  courts.  On  July  16th,  1500,  the 
mayor  definitely  asserted  his  pretensions  by  gathering 
two  hundred  followers  arrayed  in  manner  of  war  to 
march  out  to  the  Hosiers.  There  certain  monks  and 
servants  of  the  prior  were  taking  the  air ;  one  pro- 
tested he  had  been  "  late  afore  sore  sick  and  was 
walking  in  the  field  for  his  recreation  " ;  another  had 
a  sparrow-hawk  on  his  fist,  and  the  servants  declared 
they  were  but  peaceful  haymakers ;  but  all  had 


136         TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

apparently  gone  out  ready  for  every  emergency,  for 
at  the  appearance  of  the  enemy  bows  and  arrows, 
daggers,  bills,  and  brigandiers,  were  produced  from 
under  the  monks'  frocks  and  the  smocks  of  the  hay- 
makers. In  the  battle  that  followed  the  monks  were 
beaten,  and  the  citizens  cut  down  willows  and  stocked 
up  the  dyke  made  in  the  river  by  the  convent ;  and 
boldly  proceeded  the  next  day  l  to  other  outrages. 
The  matter  was  brought  to  judgement,  and  a  verdict 
given  against  the  mayor  for  riot — a  verdict  which  that 
official,  however,  lightly  disregarded.  It  was  in  vain 
that  the  prior,  wealthy  and  powerful  as  he  was,  and 
accustomed  to  so  great  influence  at  court,  appealed  to 
the  Star  Chamber  to  have  the  penalty  enforced,  for 
no  further  steps  were  taken  by  the  government.  It 
probably  judged  wisely,  since  in  such  a  matter  the 
temper  of  the  citizens  ran  high  ;  and  the  rectification 
of  frontiers  was  resented  as  stoutly  as  a  new  delimita- 
tion of  kingdoms  and  empires  to-day. 

IV.  Resolution  in  the  defence  of  their  territory  was 
no  doubt  quickened  by  the  sense  which  every  burgess 
shared  of  common  property  in  the  borough.  The 
value  of  woodland  and  field  and  meadow  which  made 
up  the  "  common  lands  "  was  well  understood  by  the 
freeman  who  sent  out  his  sheep  or  COWTS  to  their 
allotted  pasture,  or  who  opened  the  door  of  his  yard 
in  the  early  morning  when  the  common  herd  went 
round  the  streets  to  collect  the  swine  and  drive  them 
out  on  the  moor  till  evening.2  The  men  of  Eomney 
did  not  count  grudgingly  their  constant  labour  and  cost 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  434. 

-  History  Preston  Gild,  41,  42;    Hist.  MSS.  Com.    iii.    345; 
Nottingham,  Records,  i.  150-151,  268,  164-165. 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  137 

in  measuring  and  levelling  and  draining  the  swamps 
belonging  to  their  town  and  protecting  them  from 
the  encroachments  of  "  the  men  of  the  marsh " 
beyond,  for  the  sake  of  winning  grazing  lands  for 
their  sheep,  and  of  securing  a  "  cow-pull "  of  swans 
or  cygnets  for  their  lord  the  archbishop l  when  it 
was  desirable  "  to  have  his  friendship."  In  poor 
struggling  boroughs  like  Preston,  in  large  and  wealthy 
communities  like  Nottingham,  in  manufacturing  towns 
like  Worcester  with  its  busy  population  of  weavers,  in 
rich  capitals  like  York,  in  trading  ports  like  South- 
ampton where  the  burghers  had  almost  forgotten  the 
free  traditions  of  popular  government,  the  inhabit- 
ants never  relaxed  their  vigilance  as  to  the  protection 
of  their  common  property.2  They  assembled  year 
after  year  to  make  sure  that  there  had  been  no  dim- 
inishing of  their  rights  or  alienation  of  their  land, 
or  that  in  the  periodical  allotments  the  best  fields 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  519. 

2  For  common  pasture  and  closes  see  short  account  in  Rogers' 
Six  Centuries  of  Work  and  Wages,  i.  89-90,  taken  from  Fitzher- 
bert's  Treatise.     In  1484  a  great  riot  broke  out  in  York  on  the 
question  of  the  common  lands.     The  King  had  begged  the  council 
to  make  an  order  that  a  close  which  belonged  to  S.  Nicholas,  but 
was  common  from  Michaelmas  to  Candlemas,  should  be  "  closed 
and  several "  for  the  use  of  the  hospital  if  the  commons  would 
agree  to  the  same.     The  order  was  made,  but  a  few  days  after 
Michaelmas,  when  the  close  was  not  thrown   open  as    was  cus- 
tomary, the  citizens  met  in  a  "  riotous  assembly  or  insurrection  " 
which  led  to  interference  of  the  King.     (Davies'  York,  190-198.) 
In  Winchester  (1414)  John  Parmiter  was  punished  for  accusing 
the  mayor  of  intending  to  sell  the  Coitebury  mill  without  consent 
of  the  citizens.  (Kitchen's  Winchester,  171.)  For  other  instances 
see  Vol.  II.  "  Democracy  in  the  Towns,"  Note  A. 


138         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

and  closes  had  not  fallen  to  the  share  of  aldermen 
and  councillors ;  and  by  elaborate  constitutional 
checks,  or  if  these  failed,  by  "  riotous  assembly  and 
insurrection,"  they  denounced  every  attempt  at 
encroachment  on  marsh  or  pasture. 

Y.  So  also  in  the  case  of  other  property  which 
corporations  held  for  the  good  of  the  community — 
fisheries,  warrens,  salt-pits,  pastures  reclaimed  from 
the  sea,  plots  of  ground  saved  in  the  dry  bed  of  a 
river,  building  sites  and  all  waste  places  within  the 
town  walls,  warehouses  and  shops  and  tenements, 
inns  and  mills,  the  grassy  slopes  of  the  city  ditch 
which  were  let  for  grazing,  the  towers  of  the  city 
walls  leased  for  dwelling-houses  or  store  rooms,  any 
property  bequeathed  to  the  community  for  maintain- 
ing the  poor  or  repairing  the  walls  or  paying  tolls 
and  taxes  all  this  corporate  wealth  which  lightened 
the  burdens  of  the  taxpayer  was  a  matter  of  concern 
to  every  citizen.  The  people  were  themselves  joint 
guardians  of  the  town  treasure.  Representatives 
chosen  by  the  burghers  kept  one  or  two  of  the  keys 
of  the  common  chest,  which  could  only  be  opened 
therefore  with  their  consent.1  Year  after  year  mayor 
or  treasurers  were  by  the  town  ordinances  required 
to  present  their  accounts  before  the  assembly  of  all 
the  people  "  in  our  whole  community,  by  the  tolling 

1  At  Worcester  the  common  coffer  which  contained  the  city 
ileeds  and  moneys  was  fastened  with  six  locks  ;  three  keys  were 
kept  by  the  bailiff,  an  alderman,  and  a  chamberlain,  chosen  by 
the  "  Great  Clothing,"  or  the  council  of  "  the  twenty-four  above  ; " 
the  other  three  by  a  chamberlain  chosen  by  the  "  Low  Election" 
or  the  council  of  "  the  Forty-eight  beneath,"  and  by  two  "thrifty 
commoners."  Ens'.  Gilds,  377, 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  139 

of  the  common  bell  calling  them  together  for  that 
intent "  — an  assembly  that  perhaps  gathered  in  the 
parish  church  in  which  seats  were  set  up  for  the 
occasion  at  the  public  expense.2  There  the  people 
heard  the  list  of  fines  levied  in  the  courts ;  of  tolls 
in  the  market,  or  taxes  taken  at  the  gates  or  in  the 
harbour;  of  the  "maltodes,"  or  sums  paid  on  com- 
modities for  sale  ;  of  the  "  scot "  levied  on  the  pro- 
perty of  individuals  ;  of  the  "  lyvelode  "  or  livelihood, 
an  income  tax  on  rates  or  profits  earned.  They 
learned  what  means  the  corporation  had  taken  of  in- 
creasing the  common  revenue ;  whether  it  had 
ordered  a  "  church-ale,"  or  an  exhibition  of  dancing- 
girls,  or  a  play  of  Robin  Hood  ;  3  what  poor  relief  had 
been  given  in  the  past  year ;  4  what  public  loans  with 
judicious  usury  of  over  ten  per  cent.,  it  had  allowed, 
as  when  in  Lydd  "  the  jurats  one  year  lent  Thomas 
Dygon  five  marks  from  the  common  purse  when  going 
to  the  North  Sea,  and  he  repaid  the  same  well  and 
trustily  and  paid  an  increase  thereon  seven  shil- 
lings ;  "  or  they  were  told  whether  the  Town  Council 

1  In  case  of  error  or  fraud,  or  if  the  bailiff  refused  to  make 
answer  to  complaints  of  the  burghers,  he  was  brought  before  the 
court  of  his  fellow-citizens  "  and  he  shall  make  satisfaction  as 
the  commonalty  shall  think  fitting."      Journ.  Arch.  Ass.  xxvii. 
462. 

2  In  Romney  the  town  paid  every  year  to  have  seats  put  in  the 
church  of  S.  Lawrence  on  the  day  of  the  Annunciation.     (Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  v.  546.)     In  the  same  way  town  accounts  at  Rye  were 
made  up  and  audited  in  the  church  at  the  end  of  the  year.   (Ibid.  v. 
494.)     Lydd  in  1471  "  spended  in  the  church  upon  the  bailly  and 
jurats  when  they  enquired  what  lyvelod  men  have  in  Lydd  two 
pence."     (Ibid.  525.) 

3  Hist.  MSS,  Com.  i.  106,  107,  4  See  p.  41,  note  2. 


140         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

proposed  to  do  a  little  trading  for  the  good  of  the 
community;  and  how  a  "common  barge"  had  been 
built  with  timber  bought  at  one  town,  cables  and 
anchors  at  another,  pitch  and  canvas  at  a  third ;  and 
how,  when  the  ship  was  finished,  the  corporation  paid 
for  a  modest  supply  of  "  bread  and  ale  the  day  the 
mast  was  set  in  the  barge,"  before  it  was  sent  out  to 
fish  for  herrings  or  to  speculate  in  a  cargo  of  salt 
or  wine,  for  the  profit  of  the  public  treasury.1 

Lessons  in  common  financial  responsibility  had  been 
early  forced  on  the  burghers  everywhere  by  the  legal 
doctrine  that  the  whole  body  might  be  held  responsible 
for  the  debt  of  one  of  its  members,  while  each  member 
on  his  part  was  answerable  for  the  faults  of  his  fellows, 
whether  singly  or  collectively.  Thus  when  Norwich 
failed  in  paying  debts  due  to  the  King  in  1286,  the 
sheriff  of  Norfolk  was  ordered  to  enter  the  liberty 
and  distrain  twelve  of  the  richer  and  more  discreet 
persons  of  the  community ; 2  and  when  the  rent  of 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.iv.  1,  438.  The  Hythe  barge  brought  back 
three  lasts  of  herrings  which  were  sold  for  £12.  In  1409  Komney 
Jurats  got  6s.  increase  upon  white  salt  bought  for  the  community. 
(Ibid.  v.  537.)  If  a  corporation  was  in  need  of  money  it  could 
always  fall  back  on  loans  from  rich  townsmen,  who  were  willing 
to  lend  even  on  long  credit.  In  1455  or  1456  one  Canterbury 
merchant  lent  £13  6s.  8d.,  which  was  needed  for  a  gift  to  the 
queen,  then  travelling  on  pilgrimage,  and  he  was  only  repaid  in 
1464.  Three  leading  men,  who  advanced  large  sums  to  do  honour 
to  Edward  the  Fourth  on  his  first  coming  to  the  city  in  1460, 
waited  four  or  five  years  for  their  money.  (Ibid.  ix.  139-140.)  In 
Lynn  the  loans  to  the  corporation  were  on  a  very  great  scale 
according  to  the  ideas  of  the  time,  and  the  municipal  debt,  entirely 
raised  on  the  spot,  was  as  permanent  and  as  progressive  as  that 
of  a  modern  town. 

-  Madox,  Firma  Burgi,  159.     See  also    in    1322,    when    the 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  141 

Southampton  was  in  arrears,  one  of  its  burgesses  was 
thrown  into  the  Fleet  in  London.1  Under  such  a 
system  as  this  the  ordinary  interest  of  citizens  in 
questions  of  taxation  and  expenditure  was  greatly 
quickened.  The  municipalities  were  stern  creditors. 
If  a  man  did  not  pay  his  rent  for  the  King's  ferm  the 
doors  and  windows  of  his  house  were  taken  off,  every- 
one in  it  turned  out,  and  the  house  stood  empty  for 
a  year  and  a  day  or  even  longer  before  the  doors 
might  be  redeemed  in  full  court,  or  before  it  passed 
to  the  next  heir.2  But  it  was  probably  rather  owing 
to  the  happy  circumstances  of  the  English  towns 
than  to  the  vigilance  of  the  burghers  that  there 
is  no  case  in  England  of  a  disaster  which  was  but 
too  common  in  France — the  disaster  of  a  borough 
falling  into  bankruptcy,  and  through  bankruptcy 
into  servitude  and  political  ruin. 

VI.  In  the  town  communities  of  the  middle  ages  all 
public  works  were  carried  out  by  what  wras  in  fact 
forced  labour  of  the  whole  commonalty.  If  the  boroughs 
suffered  little  from  government  interference  neither 
could  they  look  for  help  in  the  wray  of  state  aid  or 
state  loans  ;  and  as  the  burgher's  purse  in  early  days 
was  generally  empty  he  had  to  give  of  the  work  of 
his  hands  for  the  common  good.  In  Nottingham 
"  booners " — that  is  the  burgesses  themselves  or 

missing  ferm  was  to  be  levied  of  the  bailiffs'  goods,  chattels,  and 
lands,  and,  if  this  did  not  suffice,  of  the  goods  of  the  citizens. 
Documents  pr.  1884.  (Stanley  v.  Mayor,  &c.,  24.)  See  Note  A 
at  the  end  of  chapter. 

1  Davies,  111,  37. 

2  Eng.  Gilds,  362-363  ;  Nott.  Records,  i.  267. 


142         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

substitutes  whom  they  provided  to  take  their  place — 
repaired  the  highways  and  kept  the  streets  in  order.1 
The  great  trench  dug  at  Bristol  to  alter  the  course 
of  the  Frome  was  made  "  by  the  manoeuvre  of  all 
the  commonalty  as  well  of  Kedcliffe  ward  as  of  the 
town  of  Bristol.2  When  Hythe  in  1412  sent  for  a 
Dutch  engineer  to  make  a  new  harbour,  all  the 
inhabitants  were  called  out  in  turn  to  help  at  the 
"  Delveys  "  or  diggings.  Sundays  and  week  days  alike 
the  townsmen  had  to  work,  dining  off  bread  and  ale 
provided  by  the  corporation  for  the  diggers,  and  if  they 
failed  to  appear  they  were  fined  fourpence  a  day.3 
In  the  same  way  Sandwich  engaged  a  Hollander 
to  superintend  the  making  of  a  new  dyke  for  the 
harbour ;  the  mayor  was  ordered  to  find  three  work- 
men to  labour  at  it,  every  jurat  two,  and  each  member 
of  the  Common  Council  one  man  ;  while  all  other 
townsmen  had  to  give  labour  or  find  substitutes 
according  to  their  ability.  The  jurats  were  made 
overseers,  and  were  responsible  for  the  carrying 
out  of  the  work ;  and  so  successfully  was  the  whole 
matter  managed  that  in  1512  the  Sandwich  haven 
was  able  to  give  shelter  to  500  or  600  hoys. 

Forced  labour  such  as  this  could  of  course  only  be 
applied   to   works  where  skilled    artificers   were    not 

1  Records  of    Nottingham,   iv.    449.      Afterwards  a   paviour 
was  appointed  who  was  paid,  or  partly  paid,  by  a  toll  taken  for  corn 
"  shown  "  for  sale  in  the  market.  This  tax,  known  as  "  shewage  " 
or  "  scavadge,"  gave  rise  to  our  later  word  scavenger   (iv.  453). 
Rules  for  keeping  streets  clean  in  Southampton.  (Gross,  ii.  223.) 

2  Ricart,  28.      1240  A.D.     For  carrying  great  stones   for  the 
quay  and  walls  of  Rye.     Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  492,  493. 

3  Hist.  MSS.  Com.iv.  1,  434. 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  143 

necessary;  but  occasions  soon  multiplied  when  the 
town  mob  had  to  be  replaced  by  trained  labourers, 
and  we  already  see  traces  of  a  transitional  system 
in  the  making  of  the  Hythe  harbour,  where  the 
municipality  had  to  engage  hired  labour  for  such  work 
as  could  not  be  done  by  the  burgesses.1  But  under- 
takings for  which  scientific  skill  was  needed  sorely 
taxed  local  resources,  and  the  burghers  were  driven 
to  make  anxious  appeals  to  public  charity.  In  1447, 
when  Bridport  wanted  to  improve  its  harbour,  col- 
lectors were  sent  all  over  the  country  to  beg  for 
money  ;  indulgences  of  forty  or  a  hundred  days  were 
promised  to  subscribers  by  archbishops  and  bishops  ; 
and  a  copy  of  the  paper  carried  by  one  of  the  col- 
lectors gives  the  sum  of  the  masses  said  for  them 

1  One  man  received  £30  10s.  in  various  sums,  3s.  4d.  a  rod  for 
nineteen  rods,  Is.  8d.  a  rod  for  106  rods,  and  12d.  a  rod  for  380 
rods.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iv.  1.  434.)  For  forty  years  the  men  of 
Romney  fought  a  desperate  battle  with  the  sea  and  the  changing 
bed  of  the  Rother  to  preserve  the  harbour  on  which  their  pros- 
perity depended.  In  1381  they  spent  nearly  £9  on  making  a 
sluice  (Boys'  Sandwich,  803)  ;  there  were  heavy  payments  for  it 
again  in  1388,  and  in  1398  John  Roan  was  brought  over  from 
Flanders  to  take  charge  of  it.  The  commons  turned  out  in  1406 
for  "  digging  the  common  Rie,"  or  bed  of  the  Rother,  and  in 
1409  were  again  busy  "digging  the  watercourse."  In  1410 
Gerard  Matthyessone  was  brought  over  from  Holland  to  make 
the  sluice  at  a  cost  of  £100 ;  in  1412  over  £44  was  spent  on  it 
besides  clothing  for  Gerard  and  his  household;  and  in  1413  pay- 
ments were  still  being  made  to  him.  A  few  years  later  in  1422 
his  place  was  taken  by  another  Dutchman,  Onterdel,  who  seems 
to  have  finished  the  work,  for  after  this  there  are  only  charges 
for  slight  repairs.  Their  improvements  remained  the  model  for 
neighbouring  towns,  and  when  Lydd  was  occupied  in  works  of 
the  same  kind  its  citizens  came  to  study  the  jetty  at  Romney. 


144         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

ill  the  year  as  amounting  to  nearly  four  thousand  : 
"  the  sum  of  all  other  good  prayers  no  man  knoweth 
save  only  God  alone."  The  building  and  repairing 
of  bridges  as  being  also  work  that  demanded  science 
and  skilled  labour  involved  serious  cost.  When  the 
King  had  allowed  the  bridge  at  Nottingham  to  fall 
into  the  river,  he  generously  transferred  its  owner- 
ship and  the  duty  of  setting  it  up  again  to  <the 
townspeople  ;  wrho  appointed  wardens  and  kept  elab- 
orate accounts  and  bore  grievous  anxiety,  till  find- 
ing its  charges  worse  than  all  their  ordinary  town  ex- 
penses they  at  last  fell  to  begging  also.  So  also  the 
mayor  of  Exeter  prayed  for  help  in  the  matter  of  the 
bridge  there,  which  had  been  built  by  a  wealthy 
mayor  and  was  "  of  the  length  or  nigh  by,  and  of  the 
same  mason  work  as  London  Bridge,  housing  upon 
except  ;  the  which  bridge  openly  is  known  the 
greatest  costly  work  and  most  of  alms-deeds  to  help 
it  in  all  the  wrest  part  of  England.  "•  Such  instances 
reveal  to  us  the  persistent  difficulties  that  beset  a 
world  where  primitive  methods  utterly  failed  to  meet 
new  exigencies,  and  where  the  demand  for  technical 

1  Ibid.  vi.  495-7.     A  messenger  went   as    far   as    Kent  and 
Essex  to  gather  alms   for   making    the    harbour.     He    collected 
groats,  pence,  fleeces  of  wool,  broken  silver  and  rings,  a  dish  full 
of  wheat,  malt,  or  barley,  a  piece  of  bacon  and  so  forth ;  and  got 
a  man  to  help  him  who  swore  before  the  canons  of  Christchurch 
that  he  would  be  true,  but  declared  he  must  have  a  crucifix  and 
writing  as    sign  of  authority,  and   got    a  goodly  crucifix  with 
beryl  set  therein  and  a  new  suit   of  clothes,  and   then  made  off 
with  his  booty. 

2  Shillingford's  Letters,  141,  142.     Rec.   Nottingham,   i.    183. 
For  Rochester,  Eng.  Chron.  124;  Hist.   MSS.  Com.  ix.  76.     For 
London  see  Lit.  Cantuar.  iii.  169. 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  145 

quality  in  work  was  beginning  to  lead  to  new 
organizations  of  labour.  Meanwhile  the  burghers 
had  to  fight  their  own  way  with  no  hope  of  grants 
in  aid  from  the  state,  and  little  to  depend  on  save 
the  personal  effort  of  the  whole  commonalty. 

VII.  The  townspeople  all  took  their  part  not  only 
in  the  serious  and  responsible  duties  of  town  life  but 
apparently  in  an  incessant  round  of  gaieties  as  well. 
All  the  commons  shared  in  supporting  the  minstrels 
and  players  of  the  borough.  The  "  waits"  (so  called 
from  the  French  word  guet)  were  originally  and  still 
partly  remained  watchmen  of  the  town,  but  it  was  in 
their  character  of  minstrels,  "  who  go  every  morning 
about  the  town  piping,"  that  they  were  paid  by  pence 
collected  by  the  ward-men  from  every  house.1  Every 
town  moreover  had  its  particular  play,  which  was 
acted  in  the  Town  Hall,  or  the  churchyard,  before  the 
Mayor  and  his  brethren  sitting  in  state,  while  the 
whole  town  kept  holiday.  In  1411  there  was  a  great 
play,  From  the  Beginning  of  the  World,  at  the 
Skinner's  w7ell  in  London,  "  that  lasted  seven  days 
continually,  and  there  were  the  most  part  of  the  lords 

1  Boys'  Sandwich.  673,  676,  684.  The  town  council  of  Lynn 
decreed  in  1431  "  that  the  three  players  shall  serve  the  commun- 
ity this  year  for  21s.,  and  their  clothing  to  be  had  of  every 
house  ;  "  but  two  years  later  the  players  demanded  an  increase  of 
their  "  reward,"  and  a  grant  was  made  to  each  of  them  of  20s. 
and  their  clothing,  in  return  for  which  "  they  shall  go  through 
the  town  with  their  instruments  from  the  Feast  of  All  Saints  to 
the  following  Feast  of  the  Purification."  (Hist.  MSS.  Com. 
xi.  3,  p.  162-3.)  In  Canterbury  four  minstrels  were  appointed 
every  year,  and  each  one  was  given  a  silver  scutcheon  worth 
100s. — a  badge  which  was  returned  at  the  end  of  the  year  to 
the  city  chamberlain. 

VOL.    I  I' 


146         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

and  gentles  of  England." 1  At  Canterbury  the  chief 
play  was  naturally  The  Martyrdom  of  S.  Thomas. 
The  cost  is  carefully  entered  in  the  municipal  account 
books — charges  for  carts  and  wheels,  flooring,  hun- 
dreds of  nails,  a  mitre,  two  bags  of  leather  con- 
taining blood  which  was  made  to  spout  out  at  the 
murder,  linen  cloth  for  S.  Thomas'  clothes,  tin  foil  and 
gold  foil  for  the  armour,  packthread  and  glue,  coal  to 
melt  the  glue,  alb  and  amys,  knights'  armour,  the  hire 
of  a  sword,  the  painting  of  S.  Thomas'  head,  an  angel 
which  cost  22d.,  and  flapped  his  wings  as  he  turned 
every  way  on  a  hidden  wynch  with  wheels  oiled  with 
soap.  When  all  was  over  the  properties  of  the 
pageant  were  put  away  in  the  barn  at  S.  Sepulchre's 
Nunnery,  and  kept  safely  till  the  next  year  at  a 
charge  of  16d.  The  Canterbury  players  also  acted  in 
the  Three  Kings  of  Cologne  at  the  Town  Hall,  where 
the  kings,  attended  by  their  henchmen,  appeared 
decorated  with  strips  of  silver  and  gold  paper  and 
wearing  monks'  frocks.  The  three  "  beasts  "  for  the 
Magi  were  made  out  of  twelve  ells  of  canvas  distended 
with  hoops  and  laths,  and  "  painted  after  nature  "  ; 
and  there  was  a  castle  of  painted  canvas  which  cost 
3s.  4d.  The  artist  and  his  helpers  worked  for  six 
days  and  nights  at  these  preparations  and  charged 
three  shillings  for  their  labour,  food,  fire  and  candle.2 

1  Chronicle  of  the  Grey  Friars  of  London  (Camden  Society),  12. 

2  Hist.  MSS.    Com.  ix.   147-8.     A   most  interesting  example 
of  an  English  play  is  given  in  the  "  Common-place  book  of  the 
fifteenth  century,"    ed.  by  Miss  Toulmin  Smith,  pp.    46-9,  the 
play  of   Abraham    and   Isaac.       The    vivacity,  the  pathos,  the 
dramatic   movement,  the   strong    human   interest,   are   very  re- 
markable. 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  147 

Minstrels  and  harpers  and  pipers  and  singers  and 
play-actors,  who  stayed  at  home  through  the  dark 
winter  days  "  from  the  feast  of  all  Saints  to  the  feast 
of  the  Purification,"  to  make  music  and  diversion  for 
their  fellow  citizens,  started  off  on  their  travels  when 
the  fine  weather  came,  and  journeyed  from  town  to 
town  giving  their  performances,  and  rewarded  at  the 
public  expense  with  a  gift  of  6s.  8d.  or  3s.  4d.,  and 
with  dinner  and  wine  "  for  the  honour  of  the  town."  1 
.It  was  an  easy  life— 

"Some  mirth  to  make  as  minstrels  connetli  (know), 
That  will  neither  swynke  (toil)  nor  sweat,   but  swear  great 

oaths, 

And  find  up  foul  fantasies  and  fools  them  maken, 
And  have  wit  at  will  to  work  if  they  would."  2 

Entries  in  the  town  accounts  of  Lydd  give  some 
idea  of  the  constant  visits  of  these  wandering  troops, 
and  of  the  charges  which  they  made  upon  the  town 
treasure.3  Players  from  Komney  came  times  without 
number,  others  from  Rukinge,  Wytesham,  Herne, 
Hamme,  Appledore,  Stone,  Folkestone,  Rye ;  and 
besides  these  came  the  minstrels  of  the  great  lords,the 
King,  the  Duke  of  Somerset,  the  Duke  of  Buckingham, 
Lord  De  Bourchier,Lord  Fiennes,  the  Earl  of  Warwick, 
the  Duke  of  York,  Lord  Arundel,  Lord  Exeter,  Lord 
Shrewsbury,  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  Lord  Dacres,  etc. ; 
all  of  whom  doubtless  the  town  dared  not  refuse  to 
entertain,  but  "  for  love  of  their  lords  lythen  (listen 
to)  them  at  feasts."  4  Besides  this  Lydd  had  its  own 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  516-527. 

2  Piers  Ploughman,  pass.  i.  34-38. 

s  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  518,  etc.  4  Ibid.  pass.  viii.  98. 

L  2 


148          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

special  plays,  The  May  and  The  Interlude  of  Our 
Lord's  Passion,  and  the  whole  town  would  gather  on 
a  Sunday  to  hear  the  actors,  while  watchmen  were 
paid  to  keep  guard  on  the  shore  against  a  surprise  of 
the  French.  Its  players  seem  to  have  set  the  fashion 
in  the  neighbourhood ;  the  Romney  Corporation 
"  chose  wardens  to  have  the  play  of  Christ's  Passion, 
as  from  olden  time  they  were  wont  to  have  it,"  and 
paid  the  expenses  of  a  man  to  go  to  Lydd  "  to  see  the 
original  of  our  play  there."  besides  giving  the  Lydd 
players  a  reward  of  20s.  for  their  performance.1 

Other  wanderers  too  knocked  at  the  gates  of  Lydd 
— "  the  man  with  the  dromedary,"  a  "  bear- ward,"  or 
the  keeper  of  the  King's  lions  travelling  with  his  men- 
agerie and  demanding  a  sheep  to  be  given  to  the  lions  ; 
archers  and  wrestlers  from  neighbouring  towns  whom 
Jurats  and  Commons  gathered  to  see,  and  supplied 
with  wrestling  collars  and  food  for  themselves  and  their 
horses,  as  well  as  a  "reward  "  at  the  public  expense.2 
Besides  bull-baiting,  Lydd,  doubtless,  like  other  towns, 
had  its  occasional  "  bear-baiting."  There  were  the 
Christmas  games  and  mumming,  and  the  yearly  visit 
of  the  "  Boy  Bishop  "  3  of  S.  Nicholas  who  came  from 
Romney  to  hold  his  feast  at  Lydd.  And  there  was 
the  universal  festival  of  the  "  watch "  on  S.  John's 
Eve,  when  Lydd  paid  out  of  its  common  chest  for  the 
candles  kept  burning  all  night  in  the  Common  House, 
and  for  the  feast — not  a  trifling  expense  if  we  may 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  540,  541,544,  552,  548,  549. 

2  Ibid.  xi.  7,  172-4. 

3  "  Two  Seraions  of  the  Boy  Bishop  at  S.  Paul's  "  have  been 
published  by  the  Camclen  Society,  1875. 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  149 

judge  by  the  case  of  Bristol  where  the  crafts  who  took 
part  in  the  watch  divided  among  them  ninety-four 
gallons  of  wine. l 

This  festival  was  observed  everywhere,  but  other 
local  feasts  were  arranged  according  to  local  traditions. 
In  Canterbury  every  Mayor  was  bound  "  to  keep  the 
watch  "  on  the  Eve  of  the  Translation  of  S.  Thomas. 
"  And  in  the  aforesaid  watch  the  Sheriff  to  ride  in 
harness  with  a  henchman  after  him  honestly  em- 
parelled  for  the  honour  of  the  same  city.  And  the 
Mayor  to  ride  at  his  pleasure,  and  if  the  Mayor's 
pleasure  be  to  ride  in  harness,  the  Aldermen  to  ride 
in  like  manner,  and  if  he  ride  in  his  scarlet  gown,  the 
Aldermen  to  ride  after  the  same  watch  in  scarlet  and 
crimson  gowns."  The  city  was  to  be  lighted  by  the 
Mayor  finding  "  two  cressets,  or  six  torches,  or  more  at 
his  pleasure,"  every  Alderman  finding  two  cressets,  and 
each  of  the  Common  Council  with  every  constable  and 
town  clerk  one  cresset.  In  Chester  the  great  day 
for  merry  making  was  Shrove  Tuesday,  when  the  dra- 
pers, saddlers,  shoemakers  and  many  others  met  at  the 
cross  on  the  Eoodeye,  and  there  in  the  presence  of  the 
Mayor  the  shoemakers  gave  to  the  drapers  a  football 
of  leather  "  to  play  at  from  thence  to  the  Common 
Hall."  The  saddlers  at  the  same  time  gave  "  every 
master  of  them  a  painted  ball  of  wood  with  flowers 
and  arms  upon  the  point  of  a  spear,  being  goodly 
arrayed  upon  horseback  accordingly."  The  whole  town 
joined  in  the  sports,  and  everyone  married  within  the 
year  gave  some  contribution  toward  their  funds.2 
To  these  festivities  we  must  add  the  yearly  pageants 
1  Eng.  Guilds,  430.  2  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  viii.  363. 


150         TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

of  the  Guilds — whether  of  the  great  societies  like  the 
Guild  of  St.  George  at  Norwich,1  whose  Alderman  in 
scarlet  robe  followed  by  the  four  hundred  members 
with  their  distinguishing  red  hoods,  marched  after  the 
sword  of  wood  with  a  Dragon's  head  for  the  handle 
which  had  been  presented  to  them  by  Henry  the  Fifth  ; 
—or  of  the  Corpus  Christ!  Guild  which  evidently 
played  a  political  part  in  the  life  of  every  great  town. 
In  York  it  is  said  to  have  had  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury nearly  fifteen  thousand  members,  and  at  its  great 
pageant,  the  Mayor  and  Town  Council  "  and  other 
worshipful  persons "  joined  in  a  common  feast,  and 
sent  wine  and  fruits  at  the  public  expense  to  great 
nobles  and  ladies  in  the  city,  till  perhaps  supplies  ran 
out  and  the  town  was  "  drunken  dry."  2  The  Craft 
Guilds  also,  whether  voluntarily  or  by  order  of  the 
Corporation,  had  their  pageants,  acting  the  same  play 
year  after  year/' 

It  has  been  commonly  supposed  that  the  English 
people  had  in  the  later  middle  ages  a  passion  for 
pageantry  and  display,  which  was  one  of  the  strongest 
forces  in  maintaining  their  guild  organization.  But 

1  See  vol.  ii. 

2  Davies'  York,  43,  77  ;  Eng.  Guilds,  141-3.    The  expenses  that 
fell  on  a  town  at  a  royal  visit  were  exceedingly  heavy.     (Davies' 
York,  69.)     For  Canterbury,  Hist/MSS.  Com.  ix.  140-151. 

'•'  In  1415  there  were  fifty-seven  crafts  in  York,  each  of  which 
had  its  special  play.  (Davies'  York,  233-236:  English 
Guilds,  141-3  ;  Hist,  MSS.  Com.  i.  109.)  Plays  were  given 
over  to  certain  trades  to  act.  Abraham  and  Isaac,  for  instance, 
was  given  to  the  slaters  in  Newcastle,  the  bowyers  and  fletchers 
in  Beverley,  the  weavers  in  Dublin,  the  parchminers  and  book- 
binders in  York,  the  barbers  and  wax-chandlers  in  Chester. 
(Commonplace  Book,  ed.  by  Miss  Toulmin  Smith,  47-8.) 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  151 

towards  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  at  least  it 
becomes  less  and  less  clear  that  the  freewill  of  the 
craftsmen  had  much  to  say  to  the  maintenance  of  these 
public  gaieties,  or  that  they  felt  any  enthusiasm    for 
amusements  which  yearly  grew  more   expensive  and 
burdensome.1     There  were   places   where  the   crafts, 
whether  through  poverty  or  economy,  neglected  to 
spend  a  due  proportion  of  their  earnings  on  the  public- 
festivals,  and  in  one  town   after  another  as  popular 
effort  declined  the  authorities  began  to  urge  the  people 
on  to  the  better  fulfilment  of  their  duties.     In  1490 
a  complaint  was  made  in  Canterbury  that  the  Corpus 
Christi  Play,  the  City  Watch  on  S.  Thomas'  Eve,  and 
the  Pageant  of  S.  Thomas  had  fallen  into  decay.     Some 
Mayors  indeed  "  in  their  year  have  full  honourably  kept 
the  said  watch  ;  "  but  others  had  neglected  it,  and 
"  all  manner  of  harness  within  the  city  is  decayed  and 
rusted  for  lack  of  the  yearly  watch."  It  was  therefore  de- 
creed that  every  Mayor  should  henceforth  "  keep  the 
watch,"  and  that  the  crafts  who  apparently  hoped  to  es- 
cape from  the  heavy  charges  of  these  plays  by  declaring 
themselves  too  poor  to  be  formed  into  a  corporate  body, 
should  forthwith  be  grouped  together  into  a  sort  of 
confederation  or  give  up  their  bodies  for  punishment.2 
In  the  same  way  when  the  tailors  of  Plymouth  were  in- 
corporated in  1496,  they  had  to  bind  themselves  to  pro- 
vide a  pageant  every  year  on  Corpus  Christi  Day  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Corpus  Christi  Guild,3  and  so  on  in  many 

1  The  prices  charged  by  players  and  minstrels  seem  to  have 
risen  considerably  between  1400  and  1500.  For  a  growing 
economy,  see  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iii.  345.  2  Ibid.  ix.  173. 

3  Ibid.  ix.  274.  For  the  Worcester  rules  of  1467,  see  English 
Guilds,  385,  407-8. 


152          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

other  towns.  Occasionally  indeed  the  Corporation 
took  a  different  and  more  merciful  line  ;  for  the  Mayor 
and  Sheriffs  of  Norwich  petitioned  the  Lords  and 
Commons  to  pass  an  Act  or  Order  to  prevent  Players 
of  Interludes  from  coming  into  the  city,  as  they  took 
so  large  a  share  of  the  earnings  of  the  poor  operatives 
as  to  cause  great  want  to  their  families,  and  a  heavy 
charge  to  the  city, l  and  Bridgenorth  got  an  order 
from  Elizabeth  that  the  town  might  no  longer  pay 
players  or  bear- wards  ;  whoever  wanted  to  see  such 
things  must  see  them  "upon  their  own  costs  and 
charges."  2 

On  the  whole  it  is  evident  that  long  before  the 
Reformation,  and  even  when  as  yet  no  Puritan 
principles  had  been  imported  into  the  matter,  the 
gaiety  of  the  towns  was  already  sobered  by  the  pres- 
sure of  business  and  the  increase  of  the  class  of 
depressed  workers.  It  was  not  before  the  fanaticism 
of  religion,  but  before  the  coming  in  of  new  forms  of 
poverty  and  of  bondage  that  the  old  games  and 
pageants  lost  their  lustre  and  faded  out  of  existence, 
save  where  a  mockery  of  life  was  preserved  to  them 
by  compulsion  of  the  town  authorities.  And  the  town 
authorities  were  probably  acting  under  pressure  of 
the  publicans,  and  licensed  victuallers.  Cooks  and 
brewers  and  hostellers3  were  naturally  deeply  interested 
in  the  preservation  of  the  good  old  customs,  and  it 

1  Hist.  3188.  Com.  i.  103-104,  no  date. 

2  Ibid.  x.  4,  426. 

3  The  York  hostellers  contracted  in  1483  to  bring  forth  yearly 
for  the  next  eight  years  a  pageant  of  their  own,  The  Coronation 
of  Our  Lady. 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  153 

was  ill  some  cases  certainly  this  class,  the  most  power- 
ful in  a  mediaeval  borough,  who  raised  the  protest 
against  the  indifference  and  neglect  of  the  towns- 
people for  public  processions  and  merry-making, 
because  "  thereby  the  victuallers  lose  their  money, 
and  who  insisted  on  the  revival  of  these  festivals  for  the 
encouragement  of  trade.  Probably  where  the  crafts 
were  strong  and  the  votes  of  the  working  people 
carried  the  day,  the  decision  turned  the  other  way. 
VIII.  All  the  multitudinous  activities  and  acci- 
dents of  this  common  life  were  summed  up  for  the 
people  in  the  parish  church  that  stood  in  their  market- 
place, close  to  the  Common  House  or  Guild  Hall.  This 
was  the  fortress  of  the  borough  against  its  enemies- 
its  place  of  safety  where  the  treasure  of  the  commons 
was  stored  in  dangerous  times,  the  arms  in  the  steeple, 
the  wealth  of  corn  or  wool  or  precious  goods l  in  the 
church  itself,2  guarded  by  a  sentence  of  excommuni- 
cation against  all  who  should  violate  so  sacred  a 
protection.3  Its  shrines  were  hung  with  the  strange 
new  things  which  English  sailors  had  begun  to  bring 
across  the  great  seas — with  "horns  of  unicorns,"  ostrich 
eggs,  or  walrus  tusks,  or  the  rib  of  a  whale  given  by 
Sebastian  Cabot.  From  the  church  tower  the  bell 
rang  out  which  called  the  people  to  arm  for  the 
common  defence,  or  summoned  a  general  assembly, 
or  proclaimed  the  opening  of  the  market.4  Burghers 

1  A  small   fee  was  sometimes  paid  to  the  parson  when    the 
church  was  used  as  store-house  for  grain   or  wool  as  in  case  of 
Southampton.     Roger's  Agric.  and  Prices,  ii.  611. 

2  Paston  Letters,  iii.  436. 

3  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  306.     York  Ritual. 

4  The  belfry  where  the  clock  hung  played  so  important  a  part 


154          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY        CHAP. 

had  their  seats  in  the  church  apportioned  to  them  by 
the  corporation  in  the  same  rank  and  order  as  the  stalls 
which  it  had  already  assigned  to  them  in  the  market- 
place. The  city  officers  and  their  wives  sat  in  the 
chief  places  of  honour  ;  next  to  them  came  tradesmen 
according  to  their  degree  with  their  families  honour- 
ably "  y-parroked  (parked)  in  pews,"  where  Wrath 
sat  among  the  proud  ladies  who  quarrelled  as  to 
which  should  first  receive  the  holy  bread ; l  while 
"  apprentices  and  servants  shall  sit  or  stand  in  the 
alleys."  There  on  Sundays  and  feast-days  the  people 
came  to  hear  any  news  of  importance  to  the  com- 
munity, whether  it  was  a  list  of  strayed  sheep,  or  a 
proclamation  by  the  bailiff  of  the  penalties  which  had 

in  the  communes  of  France  that  the  right  to  have  a  belfry  and  a 
town  hall  were  given  by  charter  when  the  commune  was  estab- 
lished, and  were  taken  away  when  it  was  suppressed  (Ordonnances 
des  Hois  de  France,  vol.  xi.,  cxlii.,  cxliii.),  and  the  bell-tower 
often  formed  the  town  prison.  In  England,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  town  clock  and  the  assembly  and  curfew  bells  in  almost  all 
cases  were  set  in  the  tower  of  the  parish  church,  and  the  ringers 
paid  by  the  corporation. 

1  Piers  Ploughman,  passus  vii.  144.  In  Totnes  in  the  thir- 
teenth century  there  is  a  long  list  of  entries  such  as  these  : — 
"  Alice  wife  of  Walter  Cochela  sits  above  the  seats  of  Walter 
rustic  ; "  "  Nicholas  son  of  Henry  has  his  seat  by  common 
purchase  ;  "  and  so  on.  And  down  to  recent  times  the  mayor, 
who  by  tradition  represents  the  head  of  the  Merchant  Guild,  was 
charged  with  appointing  seats  in  the  church  to  the  inhabitants. 
(Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iii.  242-3.)  In  Liverpool,  "  according  to 
ancient  custom,"  the  city  officers  and  their  wives  had  special  seatsin 
S.  Nicholas,  and  after  them  the  householders  ;  "  apprentices  and 
servants  shall  sit  or  stand  in  the  alleys."  (Picton's  Liverpool, 
ii.  53,  54,  57.)  For  allotment  of  seats  in  the  parish  church  see 
Toulmin  Smith,  The  Parish,  2nd  Edition.  1857,  441. 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  155 

been  decreed  in  the  manor  court  against  offenders.1 
The  church  was  their  Common  Hall  where  the  com- 
monalty met  for  all  kinds  of  business,  to  audit  the 
town  accounts,  to  divide  the  common  lands,  to  make 
grants  of  property,  to  hire  soldiers,  or  to  elect  a 
mayor.  There  the  council  met  on  Sundays  or 
festivals,  as  might  best  suit  their  convenience  ;  so 
that  we  even  hear  of  a  payment  made  by  the  priest 
to  the  corporation  to  induce  them  not  to  hold  their 
assemblies  in  the  chancel  while  high  mass  was  being 
performed.2  It  was  the  natural  place  for  justices  to 
sit  and  hear  cases  of  assault  and  theft ;  or  it  might 
serve  as  a  hall  where  difficult  legal  questions  could  be 
argued  out  by  lawyers.  In  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century  when  the  Bishop  and  the  Mayor  of  Exeter 
were  in  the  height  of  a  fierce  contest  about  the 
government  of  the  town  they  met  for  discussion  in 
the  cathedral.  "  When  my  lord  had  said  his  prayers 
at  the  high  altar  he  went  apart  to  the  side  altar  by 
himself  and  called  to  him  apart  the  mayor  and  no 
more,  and  there  communed  together  a  great  while." 
And  on  this  common  ground  the  dean  and  chapter  on 
the  one  side  and  the  mayor  and  Town  Council  on  the 
other,  attended  by  their  respective  lawyers,  fought 
out  the  questions  of  law  on  which  the  case  turned.3 

1  In  Cumberland  stray  sheep  were  proclaimed  at  the  church  on 
Sunday.      At  Rotherham  the  penalties  decreed    in    the    manor 
court  were  commonly  ordered  to  be  published  by  the  bailiff  in  the 
church.     (Hunter's    Doncaster,    ii.   10.)      In     1462    the    king's 
judges   sat  to  hold  trials  in  the  Grey  Friars'  Church  at  Bridge- 
water  for  cases  of  assault  and  theft.     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iii.  316.) 

2  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  537.     Romney.     Ibid.  iv.  1,  436. 

3  Shillingford's  Letters,  48,  94.     For  the  church  of  S.Nicholas 


156          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

Ill  fair  time  the  throng  of  traders  expected  to  be  allowed 
to  overflow  from  the  High  Street  into  the  cathedral 
precincts,  and  were  "  ever  wont  and  used  ....  to 
lay  open,  buy  and  sell  divers  merchandises  in  the 
said  church  and  cemetery  and  special  in  the  king's 
highway  there  as  at  Wells,  Salisbury  and  other 
places  more,  as  dishes,  bowls,  and  other  things  like, 
and  in  the  said  church  ornaments  for  the  same  and 
other  jewels  convenient  thereto."  :  In  a  draft  pres- 
entation to  a  London  vicarage  of  1427  there  is 

o 

a  written  memorandum  with  an  order  from 
the  king  that  no  fairs  or  markets  shall  be  held  in 
sanctuaries,  "  for  the  honour  of  Holy  Church." 2 
Edward  the  First  had  indeed  forbidden  such  fairs 
in  his  Statute  of  Merchants,  but  such  an  order  was 
little  in  harmony  with  the  habits  and  customs  of  the 
age ;  and  if  there  was  an  occasional  stirring  of  con- 
science in  the  matter,  it  was  not  till  the  time  of  Laud 
that  the  public  attained  to  a  conviction,  or  acquiesced 
in  an  authoritative  assertion,  that  the  church  was 

Romney,  1422,  see  Hist.  AISS.  Com.  v.  542.  In  Dover  barons  of 
Cinque  Ports  met  at  the  church  of  S.  James.  (Ibid.  v.  528,  538.) 
For  Rye,  Ibid.,  499.  The  meetings  of  the  town  council  in  South- 
ampton were  probably  first  held  in  the  church  of  S.  Cross  or 
Holy  Rood,  where  the  assembly  bell  and  curfew  bell  hung;  and 
so  closely  did  the  idea  of  the  town  life  come  to  be  connected  with 
this  spot  that  when  a  town  hall  was  built  in  the  fourteenth 
century  the  church  was  moved  further  back  that  the  hall  might 
stand  on  its  exact  site.  As  late  as  1470  the  mayor  and  his 
brethren  met  in  the  parish  church  to  settle  a  question  of  town 
business. 

1  Shillingford's  Letters,  93.  Report  on  Markets,  25.  Fairs 
forbidden  on  Sundays  and  feast  days  ;  27  Henry  VI.,  cap.  5. 

-  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  43fi. 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  157 

desecrated  by  the  transaction  in  it  of  common  busi- 
ness.1 

In  the  middle  ages  however  the  townspeople  were 
connected  with  their  parish  church  after  a  fashion 
which  has  long  been  unknown  among  us.  They  were 
frequently  the  lay  rectors  ;  they  appointed  the  wardens 
and  churchwardens  ;  they  had  control  of  the  funds, 
and  the  administration  of  lands  left  for  maintaining 
its  services  and  fabric  ;  sometimes  they  laid  claim  to 
the  fees  paid  for  masses.2  The  popular  interest 
might  even  extend  to  the  criticism  and  discipline  of  the 
rector  ;  so  that  in  Bridport  an  enquiry  of  the  bishop  as 
to  whether  his  chaplain,  ''a foreigner  from  Britanny," 
was  "  drunk  every  day  "  was  held  in  presence  of  "  a 
copious  multitude  of  the  parishioners,"  and  twelve 
townsmen  acted  as  witnesses.3  If  a  religious  guild 

1  It  is  interesting  to  note  the  scientific  experiments  of  "  Doctor 
Wren  "  in  the  tower  of  old  S.  Paul's,  described  in  a  letter  from 
Moray    to   Huygens,  Sep.    23,   1664.        (Euvres   Completes    de 
Huygens.     Amsterdam,  1893,  vol.  v. 

2  The  mayor  and  jurats   of  Rye    had  the  nomination  of  the 
chaplain  of  S.  Bartholomew's.     (Lyons,  ii.  367.)     For  Sandwich 
Boys,  672-3.     The  Bridgewater  burgesses  were  lay  rectors  of  the 
church.     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iii.  312.)     For  the  Wells  corporation, 
Hist.  MSS.  Com.  i.  106.  At  Dartmouth  the  parish  church  was  built 
by  the  mayor  ;  and  a  dispute  began  between  mayor  and  vicar  who 
was  to  have  fees  for  masses ;  fresh  d  ispute  raised  every  thirty 
years  from  that  time  till  1 874,  when  it  had  come  to  a  question 
of  pew  rents,  and  a  compromise  was  made.      In  Andover  the 
custodians  of  the  cemetery  were  chosen  by  the  people  (Gross,  ii. 
331).     "If  any  person  shall   be  a  water  bearer    in  Totnes   he 
shall  cry  the  hour  of  the  day  and  shall  carry  the  holy  water 
every  Sunday  throughout  the  whole  ville  of  Totnes."    (Hist.  MSS. 
Com.  iii.  344.)     Payment  was  often  made  for  sermons.     (Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  v.  549.    Davies'  York,  77.) 

3  Hist.   MSS.  Com.  vi.  495.       For  the  presenting  of   parish 


158         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

had  become  identified  with  the  corporation,  the  town 
body  and  the  Church  were  united  by  a  yet  closer  tie. 
The  corporation  of  Plymouth,  which  on  its  other 
side  was  the  Guild  of  our  Lady  and  St.  George, 
issued  its  instructions  even  as  to  the  use  of  vest- 
ments in  St.  Andrews,  ruling  when  "  the  best  copes 
and  vestments  "  should  be  used  at  funerals,  and  how 
"the  second  blue  copes"  only  might  be  displayed 
at  the  burial  of  any  man  wTho  died  without  leaving 
to  the  Church  an  offering  of  twenty  shillings.1 

The  people  on  their  side  were  taxed,  and  heavily 
taxed,  for  the  various  expenses  of  the  Church.2  Ser- 
geants sent  by  the  Town  Council  collected  under  severe 
penalties  the  dues  for  the  blessed  bread  and  "  tren- 
dilles  "  of  wax,  or  "  light-silver  "  for  the  lights  burned 
beside  dead  bodies  laid  in  the  church  ;  and  the  town 
treasury  paid  for  "  coals  for  the  new  fire  on  Easter 
Eve."  3  If  a  church  had  to  be  repaired  or  rebuilt  the 

priests  and  clerics  by  the  town  juries  see  Cutts'  Colchester,  129. 
"  And  also  the  parish  priest  of  St.  Peter's  for  over  assessing  of 
poor  folks  and  men's  servants  at  Easter  for  their  tythes  and  other 
duties."  (Nott.  Rec.  iii.  364.)  In  1476,  when  the  chaplain  of 
Old  Romney  Church  was  arraigned  for  felony,  "  according  to  the 
custom  of  the  Cinque  Ports,  for  his  acquittance  it  is  assigned  that 
he  shall  have  36  good  and  lawful  men  to  be  at  the  Hundred 
Court  next  to  come  at  his  peril."  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  vi.  544.  See 
ch.  v.  p.  175,  note. 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  272. 

2  For   the    rise  of  the   new   parish  administration,  Gneist    i. 
282-5;  ii.  21. 

3  Hythe,  Hist.    MSS.  Com.   iv.  1,  432.     Bridport,  Hist,  MSS. 
<Jom.  vi.  495  ;  Andover,  Gross,  ii.  345.     In  Lynn  all  houses  leased 
for  20s.   a  year  were  bound   to    supply  the  blessed   bread  and 
wax  for  S.  Margaret's,  and  the  most  elaborate  rules  were  drawn 
•up  to  regulate  the  contributions  which  were  to  be  paid  by  tene- 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  159 

pressure  of  spiritual  hopes  or  fears,  the  habit  of  public 
duty,  the  boastfulness  of  local  pride,  all  the  influences 
that  might  stimulate  the  common  effort,  were  raised 
to  their  highest  efficiency  by  the  watchful  care  of  the 
corporation.  All  necessary  orders  were  sent  out  by 
the  mayor,  who  with  the  Town  Council  determined  the 
share  which  the  inhabitants  were  to  take  in  the  work  ; 
and  in  small  and  destitute  parishes  where  the  principle 
of  self-help  and  independence  was  quite  as  fully  re- 
cognized as  it  was  in  bigger  and  richer  towns,  real 
sacrifices  were  demanded.  Men  gave  their  money  or 
their  labour  or  the  work  of  their  horse  and  cart,  or 
they  offered  a  sheep  or  fowls,  or  perhaps  rings  and 
personal  ornaments.1  In  the  pride  of  their  growing 
municipal  life  the  poorest  boroughs  built  new  towers 
and  hung  new  chimes  worthy  of  the  latest  popular 
ideals.  The  inhabitants  of  Totnes  were  so  poor 
that  in  1449  there  were  only  three  people  in 
the  town  who  paid  as  much  as  twentypence  for  the 

ments  lying  together,  or  by  various  tenements  under  one  roof. 
In  case  payment  was  refused  the  common  sergeant,  or  any  officer 
sent  by  the  mayor,  might  levy  a  distress  and  carry  off  the 
tenant's  goods  to  the  Guild  Hall  to  be  kept  till  he  had  made 
satisfaction  or  paid  a  tine  of  20s.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  3,  161.) 
Payments  for  the  holy  fire  are  frequent.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iv. 
432,  v.  549.)  Sometimes  fines  for  breach  of  trade  laws  went  to 
church  uses.  (Gross,  ii.  331,  345.)  In  Rye,  if  any  animal  got 
into  the  churchyard  the  owner  paid  3s.  4d.  to  fabric  of  church. 
(Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  489.) 

1  In  Bridport  the  bequests  for  the  church  from  1450  to  1460 
consist  of  such  things  as  a  brass  crock,  a  ring,  small  sums  of 
money,  and  more  often  one  or  two  sheep  or  lambs.  Hist.  MSS. 
Com.  vi.  494.  Manorial  Pleas  (Selden  Soc.),  150.  Hist.  MSS. 
Com.  x.  4,  524,  529,  531.  Gross,  Gild  Merchant,  ii.  345. 


160         TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

tax  of  half-tenths  and  fifteenths  for  the  King.  But 
since  Totnes  had  four  new  bells  which  had  been 
anointed  and  consecrated  in  1442,  it  decided  that  the 
old  wooden  belfry  of  the  parish  church  should  be  re- 
placed by  a  new  stone  tower.  A  master  mason  was 
appointed  in  1448,  and  "supervisors"  wTere  chosen 
to  visit  the  bell  towers  of  all  the  country  round  and 
to  make  that  at  Totnes  "  according  to  the  best  model." 
The  proctors  of  the  church  provided  shovels  and  pick- 
axes, and  the  parishioners  were  called  out  to  dig  stones 
from  the  quarry  ;  every  one  who  had  a  horse  was  to 
help  in  carrying  the  stones,  "  but  without  coercion," 
while  "  those  who  have  no  horses  of  their  own  are  to 
work  with  the  horses  of  other  persons,  but  at  their 
own  cost,"  Last  of  all  an  ordinance  was  made  that  the 
mayor,  vicar,  and  proctors  of  the  church  should  go 
round  to  each  parishioner  and  see  how  much  he  would 
give  to  the  collection  on  Sundays  for  the  bell  tower, 
and  those  who  contributed  nothing  were  to  have 
their  names  entered  on  a  roll  and  sent  to  the  Arch- 
deacon's Court,1  When  St.  Andrews  at  Plymouth  was 
enlarged  the  town  authorities  decided  that  the  money 
should  be  collected  by  means  of  a  yearly  "  church- 
ale."  Taverns  were  closed  by  order  of  the  coun- 
cil on  a  certain  day,  and  every  ward  of  the  town 
made  for  itself  a  "  hale  "  or  booth  in  the  cemetery 
of  the  parish  church.  All  inhabitants  of  the  wards 

1  Hist,  MSS.  Com.  iii.  345,  346.  When  Hythe  set  up  its 
new  steeple  in  1480  the  twelve  jurats  headed  the  list  of  subscrip- 
tions, the  greatest  sum  given  by  them  being  10s.  Then  came 
the  commons  giving  from  20s.  down  to  Id.,  that  is,  a  day's  sub- 
sistence. (Ibid.  iv.  1,  433.) 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  161 

were  commanded  to  come  with  as  many  friends  and 
acquaintances  as  possible  "  for  the  increasing  of  the 
said  ale,"  and  to  bring  with  them  "  except  bread  and 
drink  such  victual  as  they  like  best  " ;  but  they  must 
buy  at  the  "  hale "  "  bread  and  ale  as  it  cometh 
thereto  for  their  dinners  and  suppers  the  same  day." 
After  ten  years  of  these  picnics  in  the  churchyard 
the  new  aisle  of  St.  Andrews  was  finished  at  a  cost  of 
£44  145.  6d.1 

In  the  midst  of  this  busy  life — a  life  where  the 
citizens  themselves  watched  over  their  boundaries, 
defended  their  territory,  kept  peace  in  their  borders, 
took  charge  of  the  common  property,  governed  the 
spending  of  the  town  treasure,  laboured  with  their 
own  hands  at  all  public  works,  ordered  their  own 
amusements,  the  mediaeval  burgher  had  his  train- 
ing. The  claims  of  the  commonwealth  were  never 
allowed  to  slip  from  his  remembrance.  As  all  the 
affairs  of  the  town  were  matters  of  public  responsi- 
bility, so  all  the  incidents  of  its  life  were  made  matters 
of  public  knowledge.  The  ancient  "  common  horn  " 
or  the  "common  bell"2  announced  the  opening  of 
the  market,  or  the  holding  of  the  mayor's  court, 
or  called  the  townspeople  together  in  time  of 
danger.  Criers  went  about  the  streets  to  proclaim 
the  ordinances  of  the  community,  and  to  remind 
the  citizens  of  their  duties.  From  the  church 

1  Hist.  MSB.  Coin.  ix.  273.  Money  was  collected  for  the  church 
at  Yaxley,  in  Suffolk,  in  1485  and  the  following  years,  by  a  similar 
custom  of  the  yearly  "  church  ale,"  the  usual  amount  contributed 
from  each  householder  for  his  bread  and  drink  being  about  4s.  or 
5s.  (Ibid.  x.  4,  465.)  2  Boys'  Sandwich,  784. 

VOL.    I  M 


162          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

stile  or  in  the  market-place  they  summoned  men  to 
the  King's  muster,  or  called  them  to  their  place  in 
the  town's  ship  or  barge  ;  or  if  danger  from  an  enemy 
threatened,  warned  the  citizens  "  to  have  harness 
carried  to  the  proper  places,"  or  "  to  have  cattle  or 
hogs  out  of  the  fields."  They  exhorted  the  people 
"  to  leave  dice -playing,"  "  to  cease  ball-playing  and 
to  take  to  bows  ;  "  to  shut  the  shops  at  service  time  ; 
"  to  have  water  at  men's  doors  "  for  fear  of  fire.  The 
crier  "  called  "  any  proclamation  of  the  King  in  the 
public  places  of  the  town  ;  he  declared  deeds  of  pardon 
granted  to  any  criminal,  or  proclaimed  that  some  poor 
wretch  who  had  taken  sanctuary  in  the  church  had 
abjured  the  kingdom  and  was  to  be  allowed  to  depart 
safely  through  the  streets.  Perhaps  the  "  cry  "  was 
made  that  a  prisoner  had  been  thrown  into  the  town 
gaol  on  suspicion,  and  accusers  were  called  to  appear 
if  they  had  any  charge  to  bring  against  him;  or  it 
was  announced  that  the  will  of  a  deceased  townsman 
was  about  to  be  proved  in  the  court-house,  if  there 
\vere  any  who  desired  to  raise  objections  ;  or  there  wras 
proclamation  that  a  burgher  had  offended  against 
the  laws  of  the  community  and  was  degraded  from  the 
freedom  of  the  town,  or  perhaps  banished  for  ever 
from  its  territory.  At  other  times  players  and  min- 
strels would  pass  through  the  market-place  and  streets 
"crying  the  banns"  of  their  plays.  The  merchant, 
the  apprentice,  the  journeyman,  the  shopkeeper, 
gathered  in  the  same  crowd  to  hear  the  crier  who 
recorded  everv  incident  in  the  town  life  or  brought 

"  O 

tidings  of  coming  change.  News  was  open,  public, 
without  distinction  of  persons. 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  163 

Where  the  claims  of  local  life  were  so  exacting  and  so 

o 

overpowering  we  can  scarcely  wonder  if  the  burgher 
took  little  thought  for  matters  that  lay  beyond  his 
"  parish."  But  within  the  narrow  limits  of  the  town 
dominions  his  experience  was  rich  and  varied.  While 
townsmen  were  forced  at  every  turn  to  discover  and 
justify  the  limits  of  their  privileges,  or  while  con- 
troversies raged  among  them  as  to  how  the  govern- 
ment of  the  community  should  be  carried  on,  there 
was  no  lack  of  political  teaching  ;  and  all  questions 
"  touching  the  great  commonalty  of  the  city "  for 
whose  liberties  they  had  fought  and  whose  constitution 
they  had  shaped,  stirred  loyal  citizens  to  a  genuine 
patriotism.  Traders  too,  intent  on  the  developement 
of  their  business,  were  deeply  concerned  in  all  the 
questions  that  affected  commerce,  the  securing  of  com- 
munications, or  the  opening  of  new  roads  for  trade,  or 
the  organization  of  labour.  In  such  matters  activity 
could  never  sleep ;  for  the  towns  anticipated  modern 
nations  in  the  faith  that  the  advantage  of  one  com- 
munity must  be  the  detriment  of  another,  and  com- 
petition and  commercial  jealousy  ran  high.1  Never 

1  In  1327  a  violent  quarrel  broke  out  between  Sandwich  and 
Canterbury.  The  convent  was  put  to  great  inconvenience,  and 
the  prior  wrote  to  "  the  mayor  and  bailiff  of  Sandwich  "  asking 
to  be  allowed  to  buy  food  and  wax,  as  they  had  been  put 
to  great  straits.  The  Sandwich  men  agreed  on  condition  that  the 
monks  should  in  no  manner  relieve  or  give  supplies  to  the  Can- 
terbury citizens.  (Lit.  Cantuar.  i.  248-254.)  There  was  great 
jealousy  between  Norwich  and  Yarmouth.  Yarmouth  was  made 
a  Staple  town  in  1369,  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  Norwich.  In 
1390  Norwich  paid  large  sums  to  have  the  wool  staple  at  Nor- 
wich again.  (Blomefield,  iii.  96,  113.)  In  the  fifteenth  century 

AI    2 


164          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

perhaps  in  English  history  was  local  feeling  so  strong. 
Public  virtue  was  summed  up  in  an  ardent  municipal 
zeal,  as  lively  among  the  "  Imperial  Co-citizens  "  of 
New  Sarum1  as  among  the  "  Great  Clothing  "  of  bigger 
boroughs.  In  those  days  indeed  busy  provincials  but 
dimly  conscious  of  national  policy  found  in  the  con- 
fusion of  court  politics  and  the  distraction  of  its  in- 
trigues, or  in  the  feuds  of  a  divided  and  bewildered 
administration,  no  true  call  to  national  service  and  no 
popular  leader  to  quicken  their  sympathies.  Civil 
wars  which  swept  over  the  country  at  the  bidding 
of  a  factious  group  of  nobles  or  of  a  vain  and  un- 
scrupulous King-maker  left,  and  justly  left,  the  towns 
supremely  indifferent  to  any  question  save  that  of  how 
to  make  the  best  terms  for  themselves  from  the  win- 
ning side,  or  to  use  the  disasters  of  warring;  lords  so 

O  O 

as  to  extend  their  own  privileges.2     Meanwhile  in  the 

Yarmouth  set  up  a  crane,  which  the  Norwich  men  forced  it  to  take 
down  ngain. 

1   1478.     Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  3,  88. 

-  The  towns  were  not  wholly  untouched  by  the  struggle  but 
their  interest  was  very  languid.  Many,  like  London,  were  divided 
in  sympathy.  (Polydore  Vergil,  106;  English  Chronicle,  1377- 
1461,  20-1,  67,  95  ;  Fabyan,  638.)  During  this  queasy  season 
the  Mayor  of  London  feigned  him  sick  and  kept  his  house  a 
great  season.  (Ibid.  660 ;  see  also  Warkworth's  Chronicle, 
12-22.)  Bristol  and  Colchester  were  Yorkist  (Hunt's  Bristol, 
07-100,  102;  Cutts'  Colchester,  131-2).  For  Nottingham  see  vol. 
ii.  The  chief  interest  was  probably  felt  in  Kent  and  Sussex. 
(English  Chronicle,  1377-1461,  84,  91-4.)  Canterbury  was 
against  Cade  and  Lancastrian  in  sympathy  (ibid.  84-95  ;  Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  ix.  140-3,  168,  170,  176-7);  but  in  1464  entered  in 
its  accounts  presents  to  the  brothers  of  the  king  "  nunc." 
The  city  suffered  severely.  The  Cinque  Ports  went  generally  for 
"Warwick  and  York.  Lydd  sent  Cade  a  porpoise  to  London,  and 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  165 

intense  effort  called  out  by  the  new  industrial  and 
commercial  conditions  and  the  reorganization  of 
social  life  which  they  demanded,  it  was  inevitable 
that  there  should  grow  up  in  the  boroughs  the 
temper  of  men  absorbed  in  a  critical  struggle  for  ends 
which  however  important  were  still  personal,  local, 
limited,  purely  material — a  temper  inspired  by  private 
interest  and  with  its  essential  narrowness  untouched 
by  the  finer  conceptions  through  which  a  great 
patriotism  is  nourished.  Such  a  temper,  if  it  brought 
at  first  great  rewards,  brought  its  own  penalties  at  last, 
when  the  towns,  self-dependent,  unused  to  confedera- 
tion for  public  purposes,  destitute  of  the  generous 
spirit  of  national  regard,  and  by  their  ignorance  and 
narrow  outlook  left  helpless  in  presence  of  the  revolu- 
tions that  were  to  usher  in  the  modern  world,  saw  the 
government  of  their  trade  and  the  ordering  of  their 
constitutions  taken  from  them,  and  their  councils 
degraded  by  the  later  royal  despotism  into  the 
instruments  and  support  of  tyranny. 

NOTE  A. 

There  are  many  instances  of  the  responsibility  of  individual 
citizens  for  costs  of  various  kinds  which  were  the  charge  of  the 
whole  borough.  In  1212  the  townsmen  of  Southampton  got  hold 
of  the  King's  money  that  came  from  Ireland,  and  two  bailiffs  and  six 
principal  men  were  charged  with  its  payment  to  the  King.  (Madox 
Firma  Burgi,  158.)  A  bailiff  of  Chichester  was  fined  in  1395  for 
not  attending  at  a  session  of  the  peace,  and  as  he  had  no  lands  and 

a  letter  to  have  his  friendship  in  case  he  succeeded.  (Hist.  MSS. 
Com.  v.  518,  520,  523,  525.)  For  Roniney,  ibid.  543,  545  ;  Rye, 
ibid.  492-4;  Sandwich,  Boys,  676. 


166          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

chattels  to  seize  for  the  debt,  two  citizens  were  charged  with  the 
payment  of  the  fine.  (Ibid.  187.)  In  1256,  when  Warwick  had 
to  pay  a  fine  of  forty  marks  to  the  King  for  a  trespass,  the  sheriff 
was  ordered  to  raise  the  fine  both  from  the  townsmen  and  from 
all  men  of  the  suburb,  both  within  and  without  the  liberty,  who 
did  merchandise  in  the  city  of  Warwick.  (Ibid.  183.)  In  1431 
the  bailiffs  of  Andover  were  held  responsible  for  various  escapes 
from  prison.  They  were  declared  insolvent  and  the  charge 
thrown  back  upon  the  town.  The  townsmen,  however,  pleaded 
that  two  of  the  officers  charged  had  quite  enough  goods  and 
chattels  either  in  the  town  or  in  the  country  to  pay  themselves, 
and  as  for  the  third  they  had  never  chosen  him.  (Madox,  210. 
Other  instances,  ibid.  182,  184,  &c. ;  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  173.) 
In  1456  the  Mayor  and  Common  Council  of  Leicester  agreed  that 
all  actions  brought  against  them  in  the  King's  Court  by  the 
bailiff  should  be  paid  for  by  the  whole  town.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com. 
viii.  422.) 

This  method  of  raising  money  was  never  a  popular  proceeding, 
and  in  almost  every  case  where  there  is  an  account  of  goods 
seized  from  a  community  or  guild  for  the  payment  of  ferm  or 
fine,  the  sheriffs  seem  to  make  the  return  that  these  goods  remain 
on  their  hands  for  want  of  buyers.  (Madox,  188,  212,  214,  217, 
218.)  It  is  evident  that  the  responsibility  of  the  private  citizens 
was  almost  extinguished  in  later  times  (see  Madox,  217),  at  least 
in  some  cases — a  fact  which  may  be  referred  to  "  the  mayor  and 
burgesses  "  replacing  for  official  purposes  "the  community,"  and 
being  licensed  to  hold  corporate  property. 

It  is  necessary  to  distinguish  between  the  responsibility  for 
the  borouylt  expenses  and  the  responsibility  for  the  trading  debts 
of  the  burghers.  In  the  latter  case  the  "  community  "  was  also 
responsible,  but  the  guarantee  was  strictly  confined  to  burghers 
and  not  shared  by  inhabitants.  For  the  inconvenience  to  which 
burghers  were  subject  by  being  seized  for  debts  whereof  they  were 
neither  debtors  nor  pledges,  see  Derby.  (Rep.  on  Markets,  58.) 
Mr.  Maitland  points  out  that  the  doctrine  that  traders  form  a 
society  in  which  each  member  is  answerable  for  the  faults  of  the 
others,  which  is  shown  in  early  charters,  was  gradually  wearing 
out,  and  in  1275  a  law  was  passed  that  no  Englishman  could 
be  distrained  for  any  debt  unless  he  was  himself  the  debtor  or 


iv  THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN  167 

the  pledge,  though  possibly  this  law  still  left  members  of  a 
community  in  the  position  of  pledges.  But  long  before  this 
law  was  passed  all  the  bigger  towns  had  already  obtained 
charters  to  the  same  effect.  See  the  charter  of  Norwich  in 
1255.  "  We  have  granted,  and  by  this  our  Charter  confirmed,  to 
our  beloved  citizens  of  Norwich,  that  they  and  their  heirs  for 
ever  shall  have  this  liberty  through  all  our  land  and  power,  viz, 
that  they  or  their  goods  found  in  whatever  places  in  our  power 
shall  not  be  arrested  for  any  debt  of  which  they  shall  not  be 
sureties  or  principal  debtors."  (Stanley  v.  Mayor,  Norwich  Doc. 
1884,  7.)  In  1256  goods  belonging  to  the  Norwich  freemen  were 
arrested  for  the  debts  of  others  that  were  not  free  at  Boston 
fair.  Norwich  however  produced  its  charter  of  the  year  before, 
making  their  goods  free  from  arrest  for  any  debt  unless  they 
were  the  principal  debtors,  or  ike  debtors  tcere  of  their  society. 
(Blomefield,  iii.  50,  51.) 

Mr.  Mail  land  (Select  Pleas  in  Manorial  Courts,  Selden  Society, 
ii.  134-5)  in  discussing  this  question  of  the  trading  guarantee 
points  out  the  difference  between  the  responsibility  of  the  '*  coin- 
munitas  "  and  of  the  "  cives  "  or  "  burgesses  "  of  a  town,  showing 
that  the  "  communitas  "  did  not  form  a  juristic  person,  while 
"  the  citizens  "  of  a  town  could  sue  and  be  sued  collectively  by  a 
common  name.  He  thinks  that  the  "  communitas  "  may  mean 
the  merchant  guild  "  though  not  perhaps  in  all  cases  a  duly 
chartered  guild."  Of  this  there  is  no  proof,  and  many  serious 
difficulties  lie  in  the  way  of  accepting  the  hypothesis.  In  the 
case  of  Leicester,  where  there  was  a  merchant  guild,  it  is  never 
mentioned,  the  responsibility  lies  on  the  "  members  of  the  com- 
munity of  Leicester,"  (p.  145-7)  and  Thomas  pleads,  not  that  he 
was  not  in  the  merchant  guild,  but  that  he  was  from  Coventry. 
So  also  "the  whole  community  of  Norwich"  is  spoken  of  in  ex- 
actly the  same  way,  but  in  Norwich  there  was  no  guild  merchant, 
(p.  149,  152.  See  also  on  this  point  Hudson's  Mun.  Org.  36. 
Notes  on  Norwich  in  the  Norfolk  Archaeology,  xii.  "  The  city  and 
feudalism.")  In  Nottingham,  John  Beeston  (p.  153-4)  brings  a 
counter-charge  against  the  community  of  Stamford,  (p.  159)  ;  he 
was  probably  one  of  the  very  numerous  licensed  traders  of  Not- 
tingham and  not  a  burgher.  (Nott.  Rec.  ii.  102-4,  240-4;  iii.  349- 
52.)  It  is  important  to  notice  the  words  of  the  charter  by  which 


168        TOWX  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY        ce.  iv 

in  1255  the  Nottingham  burghers  had  obtained  freedom  from 
arrest,  "except  in  case  the  debtors  are  of  their  commune  and  power, 
having  whereof  their  debts  may  be  wholly  or  partly  satisfied, 
and  the  said  burgesses  shall  have  failed  in  doing  justice  to  the 
creditors  of  the  same  debtors."  (Nott.  Eec.  i.  41.)  For  Wiggenhall, 
(Select  Pleas,  pp.  157-8.)  The  mutual  responsibility  must  be  con- 
sidered in.  connection  with  the  inter-municipal  treaties  (see  Vol. 
ii.  ch.  iii.)  which  were  always  drawn  up  in  the  name  of  "the 
community  "at  this  early  time,  and  never  at  any  time  in  the  name 
of  the  guild  merchant.  I  have  suggested  in  vol.  ii.  (see  Norwich, 
Lynn,  Nottingham,  Southampton)  another  meaning  of  "  com- 
iiiunitas,"  which  seems  to  me  to  apply  also  to  the  instances  here 
mentioned  bv  Mr.  Maitlaiid. 


CHAPTEK  V 

THE    TOWNSPEOPLE 

No  dispute  has  raged  more  fiercely  in  this  century, 
not  only  in  England  but  throughout  Europe,  than 
the  dispute  as  to  what  qualifications  should  make  a 
man  fit  to  take  part  in  the  government  of  his  state, 
The  possession  of  property  in  land,  a  fixed  yearly 
income,  birth  into  a  certain  rank,  a  standard  of  age, 
some  degree  of  education — these  and  other  tests  of 
merit  have  been  applied  in  the  hope  of  securing 
that  every  active  citizen  shall  be  distinguished  by 
a  fitting  capacity,  whether  proved  by  his  own  attain- 
ments or  guaranteed  by  the  virtues  or  the  prosperity 
of  his  ancestors.  But  the  anxieties  and  cares  of 
great  states  in  this  matter  are  only  the  repetition  on  a 
grand  scale  of  the  perplexities  that  beset  the  humble 
communities  who  first  tried  to  solve  the  problem  of 
how  a  society  of  freemen  could  best  rule  themselves. 
In  the  early  '•'  commimitas  "  of  the  village  or  town 
out  of  which  the  later  chartered  borough  was  to  grow 
—a  community  which  possessed  common  fields  or 


170          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

customary  rights  of  common  over  surrounding 
meadows,  and  which  had  doubtless  found  some 
regular  system  for  the  management  of  its  own  affairs  l 
—the  obvious  course  was  to  count  as  the  responsible 
men  of  the  township  the  land-holders  who  had  a 
share  in  the  common  property  ;  and  when  the  com- 
munity had  received  the  charter  which  made  it 
into  a  free  borough  the  same  system  was  naturally 
continued.  Those  who  owned  a  house  and  a  certain 
amount  of  land,  measured  according  to  the  custom 
of  the  borough,  formed  the  society  of  burghers,2  and 

1  The  agricultural   tenants  and  labourers  011   a  manor  were 
accustomed  to  elect  from  among  themselves  a  "  Provost  "  to  be 
head  over  them  and  to  stand  between  them  and  their  lord,  Avhom 
they  were  pledged  to   obey  in  all  things,  and  who  on  his  side 
undertook  to  answer  for  them  to  their  master.     Bound  by  the 
closest  ties  of  mutual  responsibility,  their  fortunes  were  insepar- 
ably connected.     If  the  lord  suffered  any  loss,  small  or  great,  by 
the  tenant's  fault,  the  provost  had  to  pay  the  value,  recovering  it 
afterwards  as  best  he  could  from  the  servant  who  was  to  blame  ; 
and   on   the   other  hand  if  the  damage   had  come  through  the 
provost's  neglect,  and  he  had  not  of  his  own  property  the  where- 
withal to  make  it  good,  all  those  of  the  township   who  elected 
him  had  to  pay  for  him  ;  and  hence  people  and  lord  alike  in  self- 
protection  upheld  the  rule  that  the  provost  must  be  no  stranger 
of  doubtful  character  or  property,  but  chosen  i;  from  their  own 
men,"   and    that  "by   election    of    the  tenants."       (Walter  of 
Henley,  edited  by  E.  Lamond,  Husbandry,  65.)     It  is  easy  to  see 
the  similarity  between  the  simple  methods  of  rural  government 
and  the  organization  of  municipal  independence  under  an  elected 
mayor.     An  admirable  illustration  is  given   in   Mr.    Maitland's 
Manorial  Pleas,  Seldeii  Society,  161-175. 

2  A  citizen  of  Preston  was  obliged  to  show  a  frontage  of  twelve 
feet  to  the  street ;  in  Manchester  or  Salforcl  he  was  bound  to  own 
at  least  an  acre  of  land.      Custumal  in   Hist,  of   Preston  Guild, 
75.     Thomson's  Mun.  Hist.  165  ;  Gross,  i.  71,  note. 


v  THE  TOWNSPEOPLE  171 

to  the  townspeople,  as  to  Swift  centuries  later,  the 
definition  of  law  was  "  the  will  of  the  majority 
of  those  who  have  the  property  in  land."  Equal- 
ity of  possessions  brought  with  it  equality  of  civil 
rights,  and  each  community  formed  a  homogeneous 
bod}'  whose  members  were  all  subject  to  the 
same  conditions  and  shared  in  the  same  interests. 
When  the  burgher's  life  was  over,  the  son  who 
inherited  his  property  appeared  before  the  bailiffs 
within  forty  days,  to  deliver  up  to  them  his  father's 
sword  and  take  the  freeman's  oath  ; *  and  the  common 
life  went  on  undisturbed  by  the  intrusion  of  any 
foreign  element,  vagrant,  restless,  encroaching. 

But  such  simple  conditions  of  life,  only  possible  in 
a  stationary  agricultural  society,2  disappeared  when 
industry  and  commerce  brought  their  revelation  of 
new  standards  of  prosperity.  In  the  course  of  a 
very  few  generations  there  was  scarcely  a  trace  left 
of  that  primitive  relation  of  equality  out  of  which 
the  early  equality  of  rights  had  sprung.  As  the 
country  folk  migrated  in  increasing  numbers  from 
manor  and  village  to  the  town  3  old  rigid  distinctions 

1  Ipswich,  Hist.  MSS.  Com.   ix.  p.   244.     Otherwise  he  was 
not  allowed  to  be  of  the  common  council  of  the  town. 

2  At  Bury  S.  Edmunds  there  were  seventy-five  tradesmen  of 
various  kinds,  bakers,  tailors,  shoemakers,  &c.,  who  were  bound 
to  cut  corn  in  harvest,  the  services  being  commuted  for  a  rent 
called  reap  silver  when  the  place  became  a  borough.     At  Battle, 
under  Henry  the  Second,  115  burgage  tenements  were  occupied 
by  tradesmen  who  had  to  work  in  the  meadows  or  at  the  mill, 
but  were  called  burgesses  "  on  account  of  the  superior  dignity  of 
the  place's  excellence."     Rep.  on  Markets,  17,  note. 

3  From  examination  of  the  names  of  the  Norwich  inhabitants 
in  the  Conveyance  Rolls,  Mr.  Hudson  thinks  it  certainly  within 


172          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENT  CRY      .CHAP. 

were  swept  away,  and  the  simplicity  and  uniformity 
of  the  burgage  tenure  was  completely  broken  up.  In 
Liverpool,  for  example,  the  burgages  originally  esta- 
blished by  John  were  already  in  the  fourteenth 
century  divided  into  small  fractions  one-eighth  or 
even  one-forty-cighth  part  of  their  original  size  ; * 
and  the  amount  of  land  held  by  owners  of  property 
in  Nottingham  in  the  fifteenth  century  varied  so 
much  that  the  taxes  levied  on  them  were  in  some 
cases  as  high  as  £3  14s.  7\d.,  in  other  cases  as  low 
as  a  farthing.2  The  owners  of  capital  began  to 
thrust  out  the  owners  of  land ;  the  shopkeeper 
replaced  the  agriculturist,  the  tradesman  and  the 
artizan  exercised  a  new  power,  as  the  boroughs 
quickly  adapted  themselves  to  the  changing  conditions 

the  mark  to  assume  "  that  the  city  of  Norwich,  towards  the  close 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  had  attracted  within  its  sheltering 
walls  natives  of  at  least  four  hundred  Norfolk,  and  perhaps 
sixty  Suffolk,  towns,  villages,  and  manors."  Notes  on  Norwich, 
Norfolk  Archaeology,  vol.  xii.  p.  46. 

1  Pictoii's  Mun.  Rec.,  i.  10-12.     For  the  survival  in  Wareharu 
of    these    burgages   of  various    sizes,   Hut-chins'    Dorsetshire,    i. 
77.     Henry  the  First  of  England  gave  charters  to  some  of  his 
towns  in  Normandy  early  in  the  twelfth  century,  by  which  the 
burgess  was  obliged  to  own  a  house,  and  was  originally  granted 
three  acres  and  a  garden,  but  with  the  right  of  creating  other 
burgesses  by  giving  up  to  them  a  part  of  his  land.     Flach,  Origines 
de  1'Aiicienne  France,  ii.  347-8. 

2  In  Nottingham  a  subsidy  roll  in  1472  gives  a  list  of  the  154 
owners  of  freehold  property  in  the  town,  headed  by  one  the  tenth 
of  whose  property   was  assessed   at    74s.   7M.  ;    then   came   one 
whose  tenth  was  worth  67s.  7*  d. ;  six  others  paid  sums  from  30s.  to 
20s.  ;  and  a  great  number  paid  from  5s.  to  2s.     At  the  bottom  of 
the  list  came  three  men  whose  tenth  was  assessed,  one  at  l-]d.  and 
one  at  \d.     Nott,  Records,  ii.  285-297. 


v  THE  TOWNSPEOPLE  173 

of  the  time  and  opened  one  door  after  another  for  the 
bringing  in  of  new  members  whose  wealth  or  whose 
skill  might  benefit  the  community.  The  ownership  of 
land  still  carried  with  it  its  ancient  rights.1  But  the 
son  of  a  freeman  who  himself  owned  no  land  might 
be  made  a  burgher  in  his  father's  lifetime.  Aliens 
might  buy  the  franchise.  Craftsmen  were  admitted 
into  the  circle  of  the  citizens.2  Recruits  from  every 
class  and  from  every  nation  pressed  into  the  ranks  of 
burgesses.  There  were  foreigners  from  Bordeaux  or 
from  Flanders  or  from  Lisbon,3  and  Irishmen  in 
abundance,  in  spite  of  occasional  outbursts  of 
hostility  in  which  Irish  burghers  were  deprived  of 
their  freedom,  "  till  they  bought  it  again  with  the 
blood  of  their  purses,  and  with  weeping  eyes,  kneel- 

1  The  old    feeling  about   burgage  property  is  shown   in   the 
custom  of  Nottingham  that   when  a  man  sold  land  his  nearest 
heirs     might    redeem    it  if    they  made    an  offer  in  the    Guild 
Hall  within  a  year  and  a  day  of    the   sale  to  pay  to  the   buyer 
the  price  he  had  given ;  and  they  might  thus  redeem  even  if  the 
buyer  refused  to  accept  their  offer.     Cases  of  a  messuage  and  a 
butcher's    booth  thus   redeemed   (Nott.    Rec.   i.   70,  100).      See 
also    at    Dover    (Lyon's    Dover,  '  ii.    274).       In    Lincoln    and 
Torksey  no  burgess  could  sell  his  burgage  tenement  save  to  a 
burgess   or   a   kinsman   without    leave  (Rep.  on   Markets,  35). 
The  mayor  and  jurats  of  Rye  might  compel  a  tenant  to  keep  his 
house   in  proper   order,   "at  the  request  of  him  that  is  in  the 
reversion."     (Lyon's  Dover,  ii.  362.) 

2  For  London  rules  in  1319  see  Lib.  Gust.  269-70. 

3  As,  for   example,  John  de  Ypres  at  Romuey  (Hist.   MSS. 
Com.    v.    542.     Ibid.   iv.   i.   427).     Foreigners  no  longer    lived 
separately,  as  in  towns  of  the  Conqueror's  time,   but  tended  to 
become  completely  united  with  the  English  in  customs  and  law.  See 
Nott.  Rec.    i.    109  ;    Norwich  documents,  printed  1884,  in   the 
case  of  Stanley  r.  Mayor,  p.  1 . 


174          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

ing  on  their  knees,  besought  the  mayor  and  his 
brethren  of  their  grace."  l  No  limit  was  set,  whether 
of  race,  or  occupation,  or  descent,  or  wealth,  if  they 
"  are  born  in  the  city  and  be  of  good  report,  and  if 
their  presence  may  be  profitable  to  the  city  as  well 
as  for  his  wisdom,  as  also  for  any  other  validity  or  worth 
known  to  the  citizens."2  The  new  society  took  in  alike 
traders,  agriculturists,  bondmen  looking  for  freedom,3 

1  Ilicart,  The  Mayor  of  Bristol's   Kalendar,  Camden   Society, 
41.     In  1439  two  severe  ordinances  were  passed  by  the  Bristol 
Council  that  no  Irishman  born  might  be   admitted  to  the  Coun- 
cil by  the   Mayor  itnder  penalty  of  £20  each  from  the   Mayor 
and  from  the     Irishman.      In  Canterbury    also  the   Irish   were 
busy  and  unpopular  traders  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  173).     When 
Irishmen  were  ordered  out  of  England   in    1422,  burgesses  and 
inhabitants    of    boroughs    of    good    reputation    were    excepted. 
(Statutes  1st  Henry  VI.  cap.  3.) 

2  Journ.   Arch.  Ass.   xxvii.    468.      There  was   constant  com- 
munication   between    various    towns    about    the    character    of 
new    settlers     who    offered    themselves,     and    the    testimonials 
preserved  to  us  show  how  careful  the  towns  were  in  such  matters. 
( Hist.  MSS.   Com.  vi.  488.      Piers  Ploughman,  edited  by  Skeat, 
Part  iii.  passus  iv.  108-116.)     No  one  of  illegitimate  birth  might 
be  a  burgess.     Nott.  Rec.  ii.  66. 

3  A  bondman  born  could  in  many  if  not  in  most  towns  win  the 
freedom  of  the  city,  as  in  Norwich  where  serfs  were  admitted  to 
the  franchise  ;  but  it  is  clear  that  here  certainly  mere  residence 
without  admission  to   citizenship  was  no  protection  against  the 
claims    of    a    feudal   lord.      (Norf.    Arch.  vol.     xii. ;    Hudson's 
Notes  on  Norwich,  Sec.  xi.)     It  is  most  probable  that  the  com- 
mon phrases  of  "  dwelling  in  the  town  a  year  and  a  day,  and 
holding  land  in  it  and  being  in  lot  and  scot,"  or  of  being  "  in  the 
Merchant  Guild,"  or  of  "  remaining  in  the  town  without  challenge," 
were  in  fact  equivalent  to  having  been  received  as   burghers  ; 
and  in  such  cases  emancipation  was  won  not  by  a  year's  residence 
but  by  a  year's  citizenship.   In  Norwich  a  serf  had  to  produce  his 
lord's   license.        (Hudson's   Leet  Jur.   in  Norwich,    Selden  Soc. 


v  THE  TOWNSPEOPLE  175 

parish  priests,1  merchants  who  owned  eight  or 
ten  ships  and  employed  over  a  hundred  work- 
men ;  small  masters  with  but  a  single  journeyman 
or  perhaps  two ;  artizans  just  released  from  appren- 
ticeship and  enrolled  as  members  of  some  craft  gild  ; 
rich  folk  who  held  several  burgages,  and  men  who 
rented  a  tiny  shop.  Everywhere  the  town  communities 
were  fast  outgrowing  the  old  simple  traditions  of 
common  acquaintance  and  friendship,  and  throughout 
the  fifteenth  century  the  seals  of  the  frequent  new 
comers  were  so  unfamiliar  to  their  fellow  citizens  that 
deeds  of  sale  had  constantly  to  be  brought  to  the 

lxxxv.-vi.)  For  a  similar  instance  of  feudal  claims  urged  by  a  lord 
over  his  serf  dwelling  in  a  city,  see  Owen's  Shrewsbury,  i.  133. 
Compare  the  references  given  by  Gross,  i.  30.  There  were 
exceptions,  as  in  London,  where  men  who  held  land  in  villein- 
age of  the  Bishop  of  London  were  not  allowed  in  1305  to  be 
freemen  of  the  City  (Riley's  Mem.  58-9).  And  after  the 
Peasant  Revolt  some  towns  withdrew  the  privilege  (Hist.  MSS. 
Com.  i.  109). 

1  A  chaplain  and  four  parsons  of  churches  in  Norwich  were 
presented  before  the  Leet  Court  of  Norwich  for  various  offences  in 
1292,  in  1374,  and  in  1390.  One  of  them  had  occupied  himself 
with  a  large  brewing  business,  another  traded  as  a  Wool  merchant, 
and  two  were  charged  with  not  being  citizens.  There  were  in 
all  towns  plenty  of  "clerici"  who  were  citizens.  (Hudson's 
Norwich  Leet  Jurisdiction,  Selden  Soc.  pp.  45,  63,  65,  76.)  For 
burgages  owned  by  parsons  and  clerics  in  Southampton,  Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  xi.  3,  65,  70,  71,  75,  81.  In  Romney,  where  "the 
freedom  "  seems  to  have  meant  more  than  the  right  to  trade,  it 
was  given  to  the  vicar  and  others.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  540,  542, 
546-7.)  Monks  and  heads  of  religious  houses  were,  according  to 
Dr.  Gross,  excluded  from  citizenship  (i.  66)  though  given  rights 
of  trade  ;  but  from  the  Charter  Rolls,  John,  1215,  it  appears 
that  in  Bridgewater  the  brethren  of  the  Hospital  of  S.  John  were 
to  be  capable  of  taking  up  burgages  in  the  town  and  to  have  the 


176         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

Mayor  for  the  addition  of  his  seal  of  office  to  overcome 
hesitation  and  distrust.1 

The  hospitality  of  the  corporations  differed  from 
place  to  place.  Sometimes  a  borough  threw  its  gates 
wide  open  and  welcomed  any  new  comer  who  would 
but  choose  one  of  the  half-dozen  avenues  to  citizen- 
ship that  lay  before  him, — who  would  buy  land,  or 
marry  a  free  woman,  or  pay  the  fixed  price  for  his 
freedom,  or  serve  his  apprenticeship  to  a  trade,  or 
accept  the  franchise  as  a  gift  from  the  community ; 
while  a  neighbouring  town,  looking  on  aliens  with 
jealousy  and  hesitation,  would  close  its  doors  and 
cling  to  some  narrower  system  of  enfranchisement 

same  liberties  within  and  without  the  town  as  burgesses.  This 
instance,  has  been  kindly  given  to  me  by  Miss  Greenwood  from 
her  study  of  the  muniments  of  the  town  ;  she  adds  that  in  the 
documents  at  Bridgewater  there  are  many  instances  of  houses 
and  market-stalls  being  held  by  clergy.  In  all  the  bills  of  sale 
stalls  in  High  Street  are  named  burgages,  and  a  law-suit  shows 
that  a  wool-stall  there  was  sold  to  the  abbot  of  Michelney.  For 
Ipswich,  Gross,  ii.  123;  and  Andover,  ibid.  321.  Local  customs 
doubtless  differed.  The  Guild  Merchant  at  Lynn  allowed  no 
"  spiritual  person  "  to  work  on  their  quay — -that  is,  to  trade  there 
(ibid.  ii.  166)— a  circumstance  which  reflects  the  greater  credit 
on  the  hermit  who  about  1349  lived  in  the  Bishop's  marsh  by 
Lynn  and  set  up  at  his  own  great  cost  a  certain  remarkable 
cross  of  the  height  of  110  feet,  of  great  service  for  all  shipping 
coming  that  way  (Blomefield  viii.  514).  When  the  burgesses  of 
Totnes  admitted  the  abbot  and  convent  of  Buckfastleigh  into 
the  Merchants'  Guild,  so  as  to  make  all  their  purchases  like  the 
burgesses,  all  sales  that  they  might  attempt  to  make  "  by  way 
of  trading  "  were  excepted.  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iii.  343. 

1  In  Bristol ;  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  327.  In  Rye,  "  by  the 
Common  Seal  of  the  Barons  of  the  Yille  of  Rye  ;  "  ibid.  v.  513, 
499.  For  the  old  custom  of  sealing  through  rush  rings  see 
ibid.  ix.  234-5. 


v  THE  TOWNSPEOPLE  177 

which  kept  its  ranks  pure  from  foreign  blood,  and 
its  burghers  free  from  anxieties  of  competition.1  Each 
community  in  fact  had  full  liberty  to  order  its  own 
political  experiment.  In  the  matter  of  choosing 
their  fellow  burgesses,  of  framing  their  own  society 
and  fixing  the  limits  of  its  growth,  the  citizens  knew 
no  law  and  recognized  no  authority  beyond  their 
own,2  and  enjoyed  herein  a  measure  of  independence 
unknown  in  continental  countries  where  a  powerful 
feudal  system  still  barred  every  road  to  freedom. 

1  For  the  various  ways  of  winning  municipal  freedom  see  First 
Rep.  of  the  Commissioners  on  Mun.  Corporations,  1835,  19,  and 
especially  the  table  given  on  page  93.     Even  towns  as  closely 
connected  as  the  Cinque  Ports  differed  much  in  their  willingness 
to  admit  new    burgesses.     The  freedom  of  Sandwich  might  be 
acquired  in  six  ways — by  birth,  by  marriage  with  a  free  woman, 
by  buying  a  free  tenement,  by  seven  years'  apprenticeship,  by 
purchase,  by  gift  of  the  Corpoi-ation.     In  New  Romney  freedom 
could  only  be  acquired  by  birthright  in  the  male  line,  and  grant 
of  the  Corporation ;  while  in  Hythe  all  children  born  after  the 
father's  admission  to  freedom  were  entitled  to  the  freedom,  and 
daughters  could  convey  it  upon  their  marriage  (Boys'  Sandwich, 
787,  796,  799,  812,  821).     The  same  differences  existed  in  other 
towns.     See    Davies'  Southampton,    140;   Boase's   Oxford,  48  ; 
English  Guilds,  390;  Freeman's  Exeter,  142  ;  Hereford,  Journ. 
Arch.  Ass.  xxvii.  471,  468. 

2  Leet    Jur.    in    Norwich,    Selden    Soc.    xxxvii.       I    have 
met  with  but   one   instance  in  which   the    King    interfered — 
when  Edward  the  Second  by  Royal  Letters  Patent  granted  the 
right    of    burgesses  at  Southampton  to  John    de    London    of 
Bordeaux,  and  in  1312  extended  them  to  his  wife  and  children. 
(Davies,  190.)     Henry  the  Fourth  granted  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  the  right  to  trade  in  Ipswich ;  but  this  right  carried 
with  it  no  political  privileges  in  the  town.     (Hist.  MSS.  Com. 
ix.  246.)      For  the  granting  of  franchises  by  French  kings,  see 
Luchaire,  Les  Communes  Frangaises,  56-7. 

VOL.    I  N 


178         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP 

When  a  new  comer  who  desired  to  be   "  franchised 

for  a  free  man, and  fellow  in  your  rolls  "  l 

was  accepted  by  the  commonalty  he  was  summoned 
before  them  in  a  public  court,  "  having  with  them 
the  common  charter  of  the  city ;  and  then  the 
steward  shall  take  the  book,  and  bid  them  lay  their 
right  hands  thereon,  commanding  all  those  that  are 
standing  by,  in  the  behalf  of  our  Lord  the  King,  to 
keep  silence,"  and  the  oath  of  obedience  to  the 
King  and  fidelity  to  the  customs  of  the  town  was 
administered, 2 —  perhaps,  as  at  Winchester,  the 
"  oath  to  swear  men  to  be  free,  kneeling  on  their 
knees."3  The  candidate  had  further  to  find  two  or 
more  good  men  as  pledges  that  he  would  "  observe 
all  the  laws ; "  4  and  to  pay  the  customary  fees, 
which  varied  with  the  caution  or  the  poverty  of  the 
borough  from  three  shillings  to  five  pounds  ;  while 
a  poor  corporation  like  Wells  was  content  to  receive 
its  payments  in  wine  or  gloves  or  wax  when  money 
was  scarce.5 

1  Piers  Ploughman,  passus  iv.  Ill,  114. 

2  Hereford ;  Journal  Arch.  Ass.,  xxvii.  468. 
s  Gross,  ii.  257. 

4  Totnes,  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iii.  342,  343.  Preston  Guild  Rolls, 
xvi.,  xix.  In  Nottingham  one  pledge  was  required  in  the 
fourteenth  century ;  generally  two  in  the  fifteenth  century.  See 
Nott,  Records,  i.  285-7,  ii.  272,  302,  iii.  58,  80,  84,  90,  102. 

•"'  In  1397  the  burgesses  of  Preston  paid  sums  varying  from 
3s.  to  40s.  (Preston  Guild  Rolls,  xvi.-xix.)  In  Exeter  an 
artificer  had  to  pay  20s.,  a  merchant  whatever  the  Mayor  chose 
to  ask  (Freeman's  Exeter,  142).  In  Canterbury  freemen  were 
admitted  in  the  fourteenth  century  for  10s. ;  in  1480  the  sum 
had  risen  to  40s.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  144).  See  also  Here- 
ford (Journal  Arch.  Ass.,  xxvii.).  In  the  sixteenth  century 


v  THE  TOWNSPEOPLE  179 

The  new  burgess  was  then  required  to  give  security 
to  the  town  for  payment  of  taxes  or  any  other 
municipal  claims  by  proving  that  he  had  either  a 
good  yearly  revenue  or  a  tenement,  or  by  at  once 
building  himself  a  house.1  A  wooden  framework  was 
put  together  either  on  some  building  ground  or 
perhaps  in  a  vacant  space  in  the  open  street,2  and 
was  then  carried  to  the  new  site.  The  interstices 
were  quickly  filled  up  with  plaster,  and  the  little 
tenement  was  complete.  A  couple  of  rough  benches 
and-  one  or  two  pots  and  a  few  tools  served  as 
furniture,  and  the  new  burgess  entered  into  pos- 
session and  began  life  as  a  citizen  householder. 
Henceforth  he  was  bound  to  live  within  the  walls  of 
the  borough,  for  his  franchise  was  forfeited  if  he 
forsook  the  town  for  a  year  and  a  day.3  Over  the 
house,  which  was  the  town's  security  for  rent  and 
taxes,  the  municipality  kept  a  watchful  eye :  if  it 
became  ruinous  and  dangerous  to  the  passer-by  it 

the  jury  of  the  Mickle  Tourn  of  Nottingham  presented  a  request 
that  every  foreigner  should  henceforth  pay  £10.  (Nott.  Rec. 
iv.  170-1.  Wells,  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  i.  106.)  In  Dover  the  payment 
was  "  put  into  the  common  horn  "  by  the  new  freeman  (Lyon's 
Dover,  ii.  306). 

1  In  Preston  the  rule   was  that  if  he  had  received  for  his 
burgage  "  a  void  place  "  he  must  set  up  a  house  on  it  within  forty 
days;    in    other  towns,  as   in   Norwich   or  Hereford,    he  was 
allowed  a  year  and  a  day.     (Custumal  of  Preston,  given  in  Hist, 
of    Preston  Guild,    74.      Hudson,    Municipal    Organization    of 
Norwich,  27.     Journ.  Arch.  Ass.  xxvii.  468.) 

2  In  Preston  regulations  had  to  be  made  to  prevent  builders 
blocking  up  a  street  by  temporarily  fixing  in  it  the  framework  of 
a  house.     (Hist.  Preston  Guild,  47.) 

3  Carlisle  Mun.  Records,  Ed.  Ferguson  and  Nansen,  63-4. 

N    2 


180        TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUKY        CHAP. 

was  thrown  down  at  the  owner's  cost,  or  if  needful 
at  the  cost  of  the  commonalty ;  if  through  neglect 
or  poverty  it  fell  into  decay  the  next  heir  and  the 
commonalty  together  could  compel  him  to  put  it 
in  order  or  give  it  up.1  Once  or  twice  a  year  the 
burgher  had  to  appear  at  the  Portmote  or  Borough 
Court  to  prove  his  presence  in  the  town,  and  to  take 
his  necessary  part  in  the  duties  of  the  court.2  An 
unwavering  loyalty  and  public  spirit  was  demanded 
of  him,  and  the  loss  of  "  frelidge,"  as  they  said  in 
Carlisle,  avenged  any  breach  of  public  duty,  such  as 
ft  refusal  to  help  the  Mayor  in  keeping  the  peace, 
clamour  and  undue  disturbance  at  the  election  of 
town  officers,  revealing  the  counsels  of  the  Common 
Assembly,  resistance  in  word  or  deed  to  the  muni- 
cipal officers,  contempt  of  the  Mayor's  authority,  or 
any  offence  for  which  the  punishment  of  the  pillory 
or  the  tumbrill  was  adjudged.3  For  such  things 
the  burgher  was  "  blotted  out  of  the  book  of  the 
bailiff  "  ;  and  the  forfeiture  of  his  freedom  was  declared 
by  open  proclamation  of  the  common  crier,  or  by  sound 
of  the  town  bell,  or  by  having  his  name  written  up 

1  Journ.  Arch.  Ass.  xxvii.  472,  475  ;  Lyon's  Dover,  ii.  362. 

2  Gross,  ii.  276.     Custumal,  Preston  Guild,  75.      Hist.   MSS. 
Com.  viii.  i.  426. 

3  In  Hereford  the  freeman  who  lost  his  position  for  perjury 
could  never  recover  it  save  by  the  special  favour  of  the  com- 
monalty,   "and  by  the  redemption  of  his  goods  and  chattels  at 
least  for  twice  as  much  as  he  gave  before."     Any  citizen  who  had 
been   sentenced  to  the  pillory,   tumbrill  or   the  like,  "  by  that 
means  let  him  lose  his  freedom ;  but  afterwards  by  the   special 
favour  of  his  bailiff  and  the  commonalty  he  may  be  redeemed." 
(Journal  Arch.  Ass.,  xxvii.  468,  481.) 


v  THE  TOWNSPEOPLE  181 

oil  a  Disfranchised  Table  in  the  Guild  Hall,1  so  that  all 
the  town  should  know  his  shame.  In  Preston  those 
who  betrayed  the  municipal  confidence  or  exposed  the 
poverty  of  the  town  were  not  only  deprived  of  the 
franchise,  but  their  toll  was  taken  every  day  as  of 
forsworn  and  unworthy  persons  who  could  not  be 
trusted  beyond  the  passing  hour.2 

It  was  no  mean  advantage  to  be  a  burgher  in  those 
days,  when  nearly  all  material  benefits  and  legal  aids 
and  political  rights  were  reserved  for  the  favoured 
classes,  and  when  it  was  the  towns  that  opened  for 
the  working  man  and  the  shopkeeper  a  way  to  take 
their  place  too  among  the  people  of  privilege.  The 
burghers,  of  course,  shared  alike  in  rights  of  common 
and  of  pasturage  on  the  town  lands,  of  fishing  in  the 
town  waters,3  of  the  ferry  across  the  stream  or 

1  English  Guilds,  403. 

2  Also  at  Andover  ;  Gross,  The  Gild  Merchant,  ii.  320,  324. 
Public  disapproval  was  held  to  be  a  powerful  motive.     In  Here- 
ford if  a  plaintiff  brought  a  writ  of  right  for  the  possession  of  a 
tenement  into  the  court  and  the  defendant  refused  to  appear  at 
the  court,  "  there  ought  to  be  taken  from  the  tenement  demanded 
one  post  and  to  be  brought  unto  the  court  and  delivered  to  the 
bailiff  ;  and  the  second  time  two  ;  and  the  third  time  three ;  and 
this  to  be  done  always  towards  the  street,  in,  reproach  to  him,  and  to 
the  notiny  of  his  fellow-citizens ;    and  if  he  shall  not  come,   the 
house  ought  to  be  thrown  down,  by  taking  one  post  towards  the 
street,  and  so  forward  and  forward  until  the    whole  house    be 
thrown  down  to  the  ground."  (Journal  Arch.  Ass.,  xxvii.  481-2.) 

J  A  copy  of  the  Charter  of  Manchester,  granted  1301,  is  given 
in  B  tines'  History  of  County  of  Lancaster  ii.  175-6.  A 
comparison  of  the  special  privileges  of  the  burgesses  with  those 
in  the  Preston  custumal  illustrates  the  variety  in  the  customs 
of  different  towns.  (Cutts1  Colchester,  169-170.  Davies* 
Southampton,  111.) 


182          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

sea  channel,  and  so  forth ;  but  their  pre-eminent 
privilege  was  the  right  to  trade.  If  ordinary  in- 
habitants were  allowed  to  buy  and  sell  food  or 
the  bare  necessaries  of  life,  all  profitable  business 
was  reserved  as  the  monopoly  of  the  full  citizen.1 
Protected  from  the  intrusion  and  the  competition 
of  the  alien,2  he  paid  a  reduced  toll  for  his  mer- 
chandize at  the  entrance  of  the  town  ;  his  stall  in 
the  market  was  rented  at  a  lower  price  than  that 
of  the  stranger  ;  he  had  the  first  choice  of  storage 
room  in  the  Guild  Hall  for  his  wool  or  leather 
or  corn ;  the  town  clock  which  tolled  the  hour 
when  the  market  might  begin,  struck  for  the  burgher 
an  hour  or  two  earlier  than  for  strangers  and 
visitors.3  If  a  travelling  merchant  brought  his  wares 
to  the  town  the  citizen  might  claim  the  right  of  buy- 
ing whether  the  owner  wished  to  sell  or  no,  and 
might  insist  on  a  share  in  the  profits  of  any  mercantile 
venture.4  He  alone  might  keep  apprentices,  and 
become  a  master  in  his  craft.  If  he  travelled  out- 

1  See  von  Ochenkowski,  Die  wirthschaftliche  Entwickelung  ini 
Ausgange  des  Mittelalters,  66.    Stubbs'  Charters,  107,  159.     The 
monopoly  was  sometimes  the  privilege  of  the  Merchant  Guild. 
"  So  that  no  one  who  is  not  of  that  Guild  shall  make  any  mer- 
chandise in  the  said  town,  unless  with  the  will  of  the  merchants." 
(Hist,  of  Preston   Guilds,  Custunial,   73.     Gross,   ii.    122,    127, 
129.)     In  other  towns  where  we   do  not  hear  of  a    Merchant 
Guild  it  belonged  to  the  whole  body  of  burgesses.     (Hist.  MSS. 
Com.  iv.  1,  425.) 

2  An  alien  living  in  Romney  paid  double  Scot  to    the  town. 
(Lyon's  Dover,  ii.  332.) 

3  English  Guilds,  392,  384.     Lyon's  Dover,  ii.  332. 

4  Boys'  Sandwich,  521.     Lyon's  Dover,  ii.  365,  366,  367,  386  ; 
Pleas  in  Manorial  Courts,  Selden  Soc.  137. 


v  THE  TOWNSPEOPLE  183 

side  his  own  town  for  the  purpose  of  trade  he  carried 
privilege  with  him  everywhere,  and  confidently  claimed 
freedom  from  "  pontage  "  and  "  passage  "  and  "  pesage  " 
and  "  shewage," — that  is  from  tolls  for  crossing 
bridges,  for  passing  into  a  town,  for  the  weighing  of 
goods,  for  showing  merchandize  in  the  market,1 
— and  from  a  host  of  similar  imposts.  Wherever  he 
\vent  he  was  shielded  by  the  protection  of  his  fellow 
citizens ; 2  if  he  had  an  action  for  debt  in  any  other 
town  he  was  granted  common  letters  from  the 
Mayor  and  Jurats  to  assist  him  in  his  suit ; 3  if  any 
wrong  was  done  him  they  enforced  compensation, 
or  they  avenged  his  injuries  by  confiscating  the 
goods  of  any  merchants  within  their  walls  who  had 
come  from  the  offending  town. 

1  An  Act  to   prevent   Mayors   from   levying   shewage   from 
denizens.     Statutes  19  Henry  VII.,  Cap.  8. 

2  "  The  Mayor  of  the  city  of  York  and  his  brethren  made  great 
instance"  to  Lord  Surrey  to  see  that  their  fellow  citizen,  Thomas 
Hartford,  bower  in  Norwich,  should  not  be  annoyed  by  Thomas 
Hogan,   a  shoemaker.      (Paston  Letters,  iii.   366.)      This   pro- 
tection however  was  only  given  on  the  condition  of  his  renounc- 
ing all  other  aid.     The  mayor  of  York  and  his  brethren  aldermen 
in  1488  were  applied  to  by  Sir  Robert  Plumpton  to  protect  some 
"  servants  and  lovers  "  of  his  dwelling  in  York  from  annoyance 
by  certain  York  citizens.     The  mayor  answered  in  the  name  of 
himself,  the  aldermen,  and  the  common  council,  that  these  depend- 
ants of  Plumpton' s  had  been  franchised  and  sworn  to  keep  the 
customs  of  the  city  of  York,  that  they  were  therefore  bound  to 
show  any  variance  or  trouble  to  the  mayor  "  and  to  none  other, 
and  he  to   see  an  end   betwixt   them."      The    mayor    plainly 
intimates  that  these  men  must  either  go  home  and  live  under  the 
protection  of  their  master  there,  or  else  if  they   stay  in  York 
must  submit  their  affairs  to  the  mayor  alone  "  as  their  duties  had 
been."     (Plumpton  Correspondence,  57-58.) 

3  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iv.  1,  425. 


184         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

Legal  safeguards  and  privileges  moreover  fenced 
him  about  on  every  side.  He  could  only  be  impleaded 
in  the  courts  of  his  own  town,  and  any  fellow  citizen 
who  brought  an  action  against  him  outside  the 
borough  miorht  be  disgraced  and  disfranchised ; l  while 

O  O  o 

the  King  himself  could  not  summon  a  burgher  to  ap- 
pear before  his  judges  at  Westminster,  save  on  the 
plea  that  there  had  been  "  lack  of  justice  "  at  the  first 
trial  in  the  court  of  his  own  town.  No  "  foreigner  " 
might  meddle  in  any  legal  inquiry  in  which  their 
houses  and  property  were  concerned ; 2  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  every  citizen  from  twelve  years  old  could 
serve  on  juries  for  the  town  business. 3  Peculiar 
favours  were  extended  to  the  burgher,4  as  at 
Worcester  where  there  were  special  provisions  to 
protect  him  from  any  wrongful  fine  by  the  bailiff,5 

1  Preston  Guild  Rolls,  xxiv. ;  Freeman's  Exeter,  144  ;  Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  ix.  241,  242,  246.  For  instances  of  royal  pressure 
brought  to  bear  on  the  town  courts,  see  Proc.  Privy  Council,  ii. 
152  ;  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  3,  97,  99,  100,  102,  104. 

'  There  was  a  hot  dispute  on  this  question  between  Wycombe 
and  the  Abbot  of  Missenden  under  Edward  the  First,  and  the  jury 
was  finally  formed  of  seven  burgesses  and  five  foreigners,  "thus 
saving  to  the  said  burgesses  their  liberty  aforesaid."  (From 
Pleas  de  Quo  Warranto,  Bucks,  Rot.  i.  Edw.  I.,  1286.  Parker's 
Hist,  of  Wycombe,  23-4.)  z  Parker's  Hist,  of  Wycombe,  12. 

4  Especially  in  matters  of  .debt  ami  arrest.  Stubbs'  Charters, 
107.  In  Romney  a  burgess  might  recover  money  owed  to  him 
by  a  stranger  in  the  town  by  himself  going,  in  the  absence  of  the 
bailiff,  to  make  distraint  on  the  stranger's  goods  under  the  sole 
condition  of  delivering  the  distraint  to  the  bailiff.  (Hist.  MSS. 
Com.  iv.  1,  425.  For  Rye  see  Lyon's  Dover,  ii.  358  ;  Boys' 
Sandwich,  449.  See  also  for  the  difficulties  of  aliens,  Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  ix.  243.) 

'•>  English  Guilds,  391  ;  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  170-1.  Henry  the 


v  THE  TOWNSPEOPLE  185 

and  the  city  sergeant  had  to  do  any  legal  business 
required  of  him  at  reduced  fees  ;  or  at  Canterbury, 
where  special  formalities  of  trial  assured  to  him 
a  more  exact  and  careful  justice ;  or  at  Sandwich, 
where  he  could  be  tried  only  before  the  mayor,  and 
could  not  be  summoned  before  his  deputy  like  a 
common  stranger.1  Everywhere  he  could  claim  the 
right  of  being  separated  from  the  common  criminals 
and  imprisoned  in  some  tower  or  room  in  the  Guild 
Hall  used  as  the  Freeman's  prison.2 

But  all  these  privileges  were  far  from  being  a  free 
gift  to  be  enjoyed  in  idle  security  ;  and  to  each  in- 
dividual burgher  the  franchise  practically  meant  a 
sort  of  carefully-adjusted  bargain,  by  which  he  com- 
pounded for  paying  certain  tolls  by  undertaking  to 

Sec-ond  granted  to  burgesses  of  Wallingford  that  if  his  provost 
impleaded  any  one  of  them  without  an  accuser,  he  need  not 
answer  the  charge.  (Gross,  ii.  244.)  See  Newcastle,  Stubbs' 
Charters,  107.  The  importance  of  these  provisions  is  obvious  if 
the  custom  of  Sandwich  was  common.  There  the  mayor  might 
arrest  and  imprison  any  one  whom  he  chose  as  a  "  suspect." 
After  some  time  the  prisoner  was  brought  from  the  castle  to  the 
Mastez  and  a  "cry  "  made  to  ask  if  there  were  any  one  to  pro- 
secute him.  If  no  one  appeared  he  was  set  free  on  giving 
security,  but  if  he  could  find  no  security  he  might  at  the  mayor's 
will  be  banished  for  ever  from  the  town.  The  bailiff  could  not 
arrest  on  suspicion  as  the  mayor  did.  (Boys'  [Sandwich,  687, 
46G-7.)  For  mediaeval  notions  of  punishment  see  the  sentence  of 
the  King  in  Piers  Ploughman,  pass.  v.  81-82 — 

"  And  commanded  a  constable  to  cast  Wrong  in  irons. 
There  he  ne  should  in  seven  year  see  feet  ne  hands." 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  170-1.  Boys'  Sandwich,  445  and  443. 
In  Winchester  the  freeman  was  summoned  three  times  to  the 
court,  others  only  once.  (English  Guilds,  360.) 

-  English  Guilds,  391.     Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  152. 


186          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

do  work,  and  work  which  might  be  both  costly  and 
laborious,  for  the  community.  The  body  of  citizens 
was  but  a  small  one,  and  every  man  in  it  was  liable 
at  some  time  or  other  to  be  called  011  to  take  his  part 
in  the  public  service.  Taxation  for  the  town  expenses, 
watch  and  ward,  service  on  juries,  the  call  to  arms  in 
defence  of  the  borough,  were  incidents  as  familiar  as 
unwelcome  in  every  .burgher's  life ;  but  a  more 
serious  matter  was  the  summons  to  take  office  and 
serve  as  mayor  or  bailiff  or  town  clerk  or  sergeant 
or  tax-collector  or  common  constable — offices  not 
always  coveted  in  those  days,  when  the  mayor  was 
held  personally  responsible  for  the  rent  of  a  town 
which  was  perhaps  vexed  with  pestilence  or  wasted 
with  fire  ;  when  treasurers  had  to  find  funds  as  best 
they  could  for  too  frequent  official  bribes  or  state 
receptions  of  great  lords  or  court  officers ;  when 
bailiffs  had  to  meet  the  loss  from  failing  dues  and 
straitened  markets  ; 1  when  the  boxes  of  the  tax-col- 
lector were  left  half  empty  through  poverty,  or  riots, 
or  disputed  questions  of  market-rights ; 2  and  when 
the  constable  was  "  frayed  "  day  and  night  by  sturdy 
men,  dagger  in  hand,  ready  to  break  the  King's  peace.3 
.Many  modes  of  escape  were  tried.  The  inhabitants 
would  refuse  to  take  up  the  franchise,  or  they  would 
leave  the  town  for  a  time  ;  4  an  elected  officer  would 

1  In  Norwich  the  bailiffs  were  liable  to  such  heavy  expenses  in 
bad  years  that  in  1306  it  was   ordained  that   they  could  only  be 
compelled    to   serve    once    in    four    years.     (Blomeneld,    iii.    73. 
Ordinances  in  Hist,  of  Preston  Guilds,  12.) 

2  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  145. 

3  Parker's  Manor  of  Aylesbury,  20,  21. 

4  Hist,  MSS.  Com.  v.  536-541. 


v  THE  TOWNSPEOPLE  187 

plead  a  vow  of  pilgrimage  to  "  &  James  in  Galliee  ;  " 
or  an  influential  burgess  might  obtain  letters  patent 
from  the  King  which  granted  him  freedom  from 
serving  any  municipal  office  during  his  life.1  But 
generally  a  heavy  fine  compelled  the  submission  of  a 
refractory  citizen,  and  in  the  last  resort  the  com- 
munity would  apply  for  a  writ  against  him  from  the 
Privy  Council.2  The  town  allowed  no  excuses,  and 
everywhere  the  citizens  were  forced  by  stringent 
laws  to  take  on  them  the  offices  to  which  they  had 
been  elected  by  their  fellows.  In  Lydd  an  order  was 
made  in  1429  that  any  one  who  had  been  appointed 
by  the  bailiff  or  jurats  to  take  any  journey  on  town 
business  should  pay  a  fine  if  he  refused  without 
reasonable  cause.3  In  the  Cinque  Ports  generally  if 
a  citizen  who  had  been  elected  as  mayor  or  jurat  de- 
clined to  serve,  his  house  was  pulled  down  ;  4  or  as  at 

1  Da  vies'  Southampton,  168.     In   1422  a  Winchester  burgess 
paid  £10  to  be  free  of  holding  any  office  save  that  of  Mayor  for 
the  rest  of  his  life.     Another  paid  five  marks  to  be  freed  from 
ever  taking  the  office  of  bailiff.     (Gross,  ii.  259-260.)     In  Lynn, 
when  a    man    was   chosen   jurat,  "  he  took  time  till  the   next 
assembly  to  bring  ten  pounds  into  the  Hall,  or  otherwise  to  accept 
the  burden."     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  3,  167.)     Fine  for  refusal  to 
go  to  Yarmouth  as  bailiff  of  Cinque  Ports,  and  payment  to  sub- 
stitute (Ibid.  v.  541).     In  1491  an  Act  was  passed  forbidding 
the  burgesses  of  Leicester  to  refuse  the  Chamberlainship.     Sixty 
years  later  another  Act  ordered  them  not  to  refuse  the  Mayoralty. 
By  Acts  of  1499  and  1500  members  who  absented  themselves 
from  the  Court  of  Portmanmote  at  Whitsuntide  and  Christmas 
were  fined.     (Ibid.  viii.  426.)    In  Canterbury  certain  powers  were 
exempted  by  writ  from  serving  on  juries,  1415.      (Hist.   MSS. 
Com.  ix.  169.) 

2  Shillingford's  Letters,  xxiii.  3  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  527. 
4  Lyon's  Dover,  Custumals,  vol.  ii.  267,  &c. 


188         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

Romney  the  bailiff  with  the  whole  community  went 
to  his  dwelling,  turned  himself,  his  wife,  his  children, 
and  all  his  household  into  the  street,  shut  the 
windows  and  sealed  the  door,  and  so  left  matters 
until  "  lie  wished  to  set  himself  right  by  doing  the 
said  duty  of  jurat."  In  Sandwich  again,  "  if  a  per- 
son when  elected  treasurer  will  not  take  upon  him  the 
office  he  shall  not  be  permitted  to  bake  or  brew,  or 
if  he  does  bake  or  brew  the  commons  may  take  his 
bread  and  beer  to  their  own  use  till  he  accepts  the 
office."  l  At  the  worst,  however,  the  burgher  might 
thankfully  remember  that  his  public  duty  practically 
ceased  at  the  wall  and  moat  that  bounded  the  town, 
and  that  when  he  had  paid  down  his  money  towards 
the  buying  of  the  town  charter  he  was  at  least  safe  from 
the  danger  of  being  sent  as  tax-collector  or  constable 
or  juror  anywhere  throughout  the  country  round.2 

The  privileges  and  duties  of  the  free  citizen  re- 
mained, however,  the  endowment  of  the  few.  That 
larger  conception  of  the  common  rights  of  man  which 
had  begun  to  make  its  way  in  the  boroughs,  was 
checked  and  hindered  at  ever}-  turn  by  the  complicated 

1  Hist.    MSS.   Com.  iv.   1,   425  ;    Boys'    Sandwich,  679,  A.D. 
1493.     Gross,  The  Gild  Merchant,  ii.  276. 

2  The  charter  of  Edward  the  Fourth  to  Colchester  declared  that 
the  burghers  should  never  be  appointed  against  their  will  in  any 
assizes  or  any  quests    outside    the    borough ;    nor  to  any    post 
of  collector  of    taxes  or  aids,  or  of    constable,  bailiff,  &c.,   nor 
should    they   be    liable    to    any  fine    for    refusing    these    posts. 
(Cromwell's  Colchester,  257.)     The  Winchester  people  paid  a  sum 
about  1422  "to  excuse  every    citizen  of    the  city    from    being 
collector  of  the  King's  money  within  the  county  of   Southamp- 
ton."    (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  vi.  602.) 


v  THE  TOWNSPEOPLE  189 

conditions  of  town  life,  by  the  jealousy  of  established 
settlers  as  to  new  comers,  the  exclusive  temper 
which  the  crafts  had  begun  to  show,  the  terror  of 
the  trader  before  free  competition,  the  imperfectly 
developed  authority  of  the  corporations  over  the  space 
within  the  town  walls,  wrhere  it  had  failed  to  break  the 
barriers  of  feudal  custom  and  the  claims  of  ecclesiastical 
corporations.  Howsoever  the  towns  widened  their  bor- 
ders, there  was  still  a  growing  population  which  lingered 
just  outside  the  circle  of  free  citizens,  shut  out  by  one 
cause  or  another  from  full  municipal  liberty.  Settlers 
came  who  did  not  care  to  burden  themselves  with 
the  duties  and  charges  of  citizenship  ;  there  were 
dwellers  in  churchyards  and  tenants  of  ecclesiastical 
estates,  wTho  carried  on  their  business  within  the  town 
liberties  but  remained  without  the  town  jurisdiction  ; 
landowners  from  outside  the  walls  brought  their  corn 
and  wool  to  the  town  market ;  traders  came  from  time 
to  time  with  wares  to  sell ;  there  were  apprentices 
and  journeymen,  escaped  bondmen,  and  country-folk 
coming  to  look  for  work.  As  all  of  these  alike  needed 
the  protection  of  the  town,  so  the  town  needed  their 
services;  and  by  degrees  their  respective  duties  and 
rights  were  laid  down  in  charters,  in  ordinances,  or  in 
friendly  compacts. 

I.  Thus  it  came  about  that  below  the  ranks  of  the 
burgesses,  themselves  secure  in  their  municipal  su- 
premacy, wTere  ranged  orders  of  men  more  or  less 
highly  favoured  according  to  their  degree.  First 
came  the  inhabitants  who  had  paid  for  special  rights 
of  trade  in  the  town,  or  were  admitted  as  members 
of  the  Merchant  Guild.  In  times  of  commercial 


190          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

prosperity  when  wandering  dealers  and  artizans 
were  attracted  to  some  thriving  borough  for  trading 
purposes  they  went  to  swell  this  class  of  independent 
inhabitants,  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  town 
courts,  but  taking  no  part  in  its  politics ; l  so  that 
it  occasionally  happened,  as  in  Norwich  and  Wor- 
cester, that  the  town  refused  to  harbour  this  body 
of  irresponsible  inhabitants  and  passed  a  law  order- 
ing them  to  become  citizens.2  When  on  the  other 
hand  trade  declined  and  poverty  settled  down  on 
the  town,  as  in  Koniney  and  Winchester,  the  failing 
fortunes  of  the  people  were  marked  by  a  steady 
decrease  of  the  class  of  "  advocantes,"  or  those  who 
would  "avow"  themselves  freemen,  and  inhabitants 
who  in  their  distress  refused  or  renounced  the 
franchise,3  were  driven  into  the  ranks  of  the  politically 
unfree. 

II.  So  long  as  the  trading  inhabitants  owned  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  town  courts  their  presence  brought 
no  serious  difficulty  to  the  ruling  authorities.  But 
within  the  town  walls  there  were  other  groups 
of  men  who  lay  beyond  this  jurisdiction,  and 

1  Thus  iii  Hythe  there  was  a  privileged  body  who  were  not 
of  the  franchise,  but  were  still  apparently  subject  to  the  town 
jurisdiction,  and  excused  by  a  writ  called  Dormand  from  Hundred 
Court  and  Shire   Court  and  inquests.      See  also  Preston  Guild 
liecord,  xii.,  xvi.,  xx.,  xxix. 

2  English  Guilds,  394.     Blomefield,  Hist,  of   Norfolk,  iii.,  80. 
:J  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  544 — 545.     At  one  time  when  Preston 

was  much  distressed,  it  was  ordained  that  decayed  burgesses 
unable  to  pay  their  yearly  taxes  should  not  lose  their  free- 
dom because  of  poverty.  (Thomson's  Mun.  History,  104.  Custu- 
male  in  Hist,  of  Preston  Guild.) 


v  THE  TOWNSPEOPLE  191 

held  an  ambiguous  position  which  was  the  source  of 
many  a  quarrel  for  ascendency  and  man}-  a  struggle 
for  license  in  the  course  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
These  were  the  tenants  and  dependants  of  bishop  or 
abbot,  of  some  lay  lord,  or  of  the  king's  castle — men 
who  lived  within  the  liberties  of  the  borough  and  who 
had  the  right  of  trading  in  the  town,  but  who  were 
bound  to  do  suit  and  service  at  the  courts  of 
their  own  special  lord.1  To  some  extent  they 
were  forced  to  recognize  the  mayor's  authority,  since 
their  rights  of  trade  were  guaranteed  by  his  pro- 
tection, and  since  he  yearly  reminded  them  of  his 
power  to  levy  taxes  on  all  property  within  the  liberties 
of  the  borough.  But  their  obedience  was  grudging 
and  their  loyalty  was  cold.  The  mayor  could  not  awe 
them  by  a  summons  to  his  court,  or  enforce  his  de- 
mands with  threat  of  pains  and  penalties  ;  he  could 
scarcely  terrify  them  into  submission  with  his  ser- 
geant and  a  few  constables.  By  degrees,  it  is  true, 
the  tenants  of  the  king's  castle  or  of  feudal  lords 
became  merged  in  the  general  body  of  the  inhabitants. 
But  the  tenants  of  ecclesiastical  estates  ~  were  main- 
tained by  lords  who  were  bound  by  every  tradition 
of  their  order  never  to  yield  up  the  least  jot  of 
authority  to  the  secular  power,  and  least  of  all  to  the 
secular  power  as  represented  by  groups  of  upstart 
drapers  and  fishmongers  and  weavers  whose  humble 
shops  and  booths  leaned  against  the  walls  of  the 
abbey  or  the  priory,  and  whose  pretensions,  loud 
and  noisy  though  they  might  be,  were  perhaps  a 
century  or  so  old  at  the  best.  The  ecclesiastical 
1  See  ch.  x.  2  See  ch.  xi. 


192         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

tenants  therefore  remained  everywhere  an  alien 
body,  no  true  partakers  in  the  life  of  the  town, 
and  when  supported  by  a  powerful  bishop  or  abbot 
determined  to  crush  the  pretensions  of  a  struggling 
borough  they  proved  a  serious  danger  to  municipal 
unity,  and  one  which  the  authorities  found  them- 
selves powerless  to  conquer  till  the  Keformation 
settled  the  question  for  ever. 

TIL  There  was  another  class  of  privileged  traders, 
—those    who    lived    altogether    outside    the    town,1 
who  knew  nothing  of  its  courts,  and  bore   none    of 
its    charges.     We    find    everywhere    these    country 
traders  under  various  styles  and  with  various  privi- 
leges   according  to  the    town's    discretion  and    con- 
venience.      Sometimes    the    citizens   sold  rights   of 
trade  to   cultivators    of   the  surrounding  lands    and 
occasional    visitors    to    fair    or    market,    and    nobles 
and    landowners    were   ready    to    give  large   yearly 
payments   for   freedom    of   the  market  and  for  the 
right  of  having   granaries   in    the  town.       Peasants 
who  owned  a  plot  of  land  just  outside    the  borough 
increased   their  scanty  store  by   learning  some  little 
handicraft   or   doing  a  small   trade   in  the  town ;  or 
craftsmen    settled  down    beyond   the  boundaries    to 
escape  the    town   dues  and  live  more   cheaply.     At 
first  the  settlement  of  workmen  and  traders  at  their 
gates   may   have    seemed  a   matter  of   small  conse- 
quence,  but  as  time  went  on  the  danger  which  was 
hidden  in  these  communities  of  free-traders  became 
apparent.     The  manufacturer  or  dealer  was  able  by 
one    device    or   another   to   protect   himself   against 
1  See  vol.  ii.,  The  Town  Market. 


v  THE  TOWNSPEOPLE  193 

the  enterprising  man  of  the  suburbs  who  came  in 
with  his  cheaper  goods ;  it  was  the  journeymen  of 
the  towns  who  failed  before  the  stress  of  the  battle, 
driven  back  from  their  poor  entrenchments  by  the 
masses  who  pushed  forward  on  all  sides  to  contest 
with  them  admission  into  the  lower  ranks  of  industry 
where  the  scantiest  skill  sufficed  to  earn  a  bare 
subsistence. 

IV.  Last  of  all  came  the  non-burgesses,  who  had 
neither  any  share  in  the  government,  nor  any  rights 
to  rent  a  stall  in  the  market,  nor  to  own  shop  or 
workroom  in  the  town.  These  formed  an  obscure 
company  of  workers  without  records  or  history. 
They  counted  among  their  number  ancient  burghers 
who  had  fallen  into  low  estate  and  could  no  longer  pay 
their  burgage  dues,  as  well  as  the  poor  wrho  had  never 
prospered  so  far  as  to  buy  a  tenure  or  citizenship. 
But  they  were  not  all  necessarily  poor  or  miserable.1 
Rich  merchants  came  from  foreign  parts  to  settle  for 
four  or  eight  months  at  a  time,  as  the  law  might  allow 
them,  and  bought  and  sold  within  the  four  wralls  of 
the  room  which  the  Town  Council  had  ordered  in 
some  inn  as  their  dwelling-place,  with  the  host  stand- 
ing at  their  elbow  to  witness  every  bargain.  Foreign 
workmen  sometimes  came  to  settle,  like  the  Flemish 
weavers  in  Bristol,  or  the  Dutch  makers  of  canals 
and  sluices  whom  we  find  in  the  towns  of  the 
southern  coast.  Companies  of  tilers  or  builders 

1  The  non-burgesses  of  Lynn,  the  "  Inferiores,"  were  men  of 
substance  and  formed  an  important  body,  whose  struggles  for 
a.  re-distribution  of  power  till  the  annals  of  the  town  in  the 
fifteenth  century. 

VOL.    I  0 


194,         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

gathered  in  towns  where  stone  houses  were  becoming 
the  fashion,  or  where  the  Council  had  issued  an  order 
that  within  the  next  few  months  every  house  must 
provide  itself  with  roof  and  chimney  of  brick  or 
tiles.1  The  seaports  had  their  uncertain  element  of 
sailors,  "  shipmen  that  had  nought,  and  cared  never 
an  they  were  once  on  the  sea  whether  they  come 
again  or  not,"  and  who  at  Yarmouth  formed  a  riotous 
population,  so  that  it  was  said  that  "  no  thrifty  man 
would  live  in  it."  2  Labourers  from  the  country  came 
in  to  win  freedom  from  serfage.  Others  came  to 
look  for  higher  wages,  and  the  hope  which  town 
life  held  out  to  the  enterprising  and  the  ambitious  ; 
so  that  in  1405  an  Act  of  Parliament  declared 
that  the  fields  were  deserted,  and  the  "  gentlemen 
and  other  people  of  the  nation  greatly  impoverished  " 
by  the  labourers  seeking  apprenticeship  in  towns, 
"  and  that  for  the  pride  of  clothing  and  other  evil 
customs  that  servants  do  use  in  the  same."3  Chil- 
dren came,  constantly  as  young  as  seven,  never 
older  than  twelve — when  they  were  expected  to 
begin  the  work  of  life  just  as  at  that  age  their 
brothers  of  a  better  station  took  on  themselves 
the  duties  of  citizenship,  for  "  every  poor  man 
that  hath  brought  up  children  to  the  age  of  twelve 
year  waiteth  then  to  be  holp  and  profited  by 

1  English  Guilds,  386,  399.  2  Paston  Letters,  ii.  293. 

3  7  Henry  IV.  cap.  17,  The  coming  of  country  appren- 
tices into  towns,  though  forbidden  by  Richard  II.  and  Henry  IV., 
was  afterwards  permitted  in  London,  Bristol,  and  Norwich. 
(Statutes  8  Henry  VI.  cap.  11  ;  11  Henry  VII.  cap.  11;  12 
Henry  VII.  cap.  1). 


v  THE  TOWNSPEOPLE  195 

his  children." l  Thenceforward  they  had  to  fight 
their  own  way,  looking  for  assistance  not  to  their 
fathers  but  to  their  patrons,  "  whence  it  proceeds 
that,  having  no  hope  of  their  paternal  inheritance, 
they  all  become  so  greedy  of  gain  that  they  feel  no 
shame  in  asking  almost  '  for  the  love  of  God,'  for 
the  smallest  sums  of  money ;  and  to  this  it  may  be 
attributed  that  there  is  no  injury  that  can  be  com- 
mitted against  the  lower  orders  of  the  English  that 
may  not  be  atoned  for  by  money."  2 

But  if  apprenticeship  ever  brought  with  it  "  pride 
of  clothing,"  the    poor    working  class  of  the  towns 
fared  roughly  and  worked  hard  among  artizans  who 
"  hold  full  hungry  house,"  who  know  "  long  labour 
and  light  winning,"  who   taste  no  wine   from    week 
to     week,    whose    bed    has      no    blanket,     and     on 
whose  board   no  white  bread   ever  comes." :      Once 
this  rough  living  and  rougher  toil  had  been  a  sure 
way  of    entering   into   the   privileges   of   municipal 
freedom.     But  even  in  the  fourteenth  century   this 
was  no  longer  the  case.      The   poorer  burghers    op- 
posed  the  admission  of   new  comers  to  share  their 
common  lands,  and  insisted  on  selling  the  franchise 
dearly.       The    crafts     had    already   begun    to    form 
themselves  into  close  companies,  and  by  prohibitive 
fines  shut  out  all  save  the  descendants  of  their  own 
members  ;  while  at  the  same   time    the  custom  was 
growing  up  that  the  town  franchise  should  be  given 

1  Paston  Letters,  iii.  481.     Apprentices  in  London  and  Bristol 
might  not  be  under  seven  years  old.     Ricart,  102. 

2  Manners  and  Meals,  xv. 

3  Piers  Ploughman,  Passus  x.  206—207,  253-4. 

o  2 


196          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY        CH.  v 

only  to  those  who  were  enrolled  in  a  craft  or  trade 
guild ;  and  strangers  therefore  found  the  way  barred 
against  them  ;  they  could  neither  become  masters  in 
their  craft  nor  burgesses  in  their  town,  and  went  to 
swell  the  general  mass  of  journeymen  and  serving- 
men.  Moreover  the  Peasant  Revolt  had  carried  with 
it  widespread  terror,  and  from  that  time  some  towns, 
as  for  instance  York  and  Bridgenorth,  refused  to/ 
allow  any  born  bondman,  whatever  his  estate,  to 
receive  the  freedom  of  the  city.  Thus  from  one 
cause  or  another  groups  of  men  were  formed  in  the 
midst  of  every  town  who  were  shut  out  from  the 
civic  life  of  the  community,  and  whose  natural  bond 
of  union  was  hostility  to  the  privileged  class  which 
denied  them  the  dignity  of  free  citizens  and  refused 
them  fair  competition  in  trading  enterprise.  The 
burghers  yearly  added  to  their  number  half  a  dozen 
or  perhaps  even  a  score  of  members  wealthy  enough 
to  buy  the  privilege,  while  the  increase  in  the 
unenfranchised  class,  which  had  begun  very  early  in 
the  town  life,  proceeded  by  leaps  and  bounds  ;  till 
presently  the  old  balance  of  forces  in  the  little  state 
was  overthrown,  the  ancient  constitution  of  a  free 
community  of  equal  householders  was  altogether 
annulled  and  forgotten,  and  a  comparatively  small 
class  of  privileged  citizens  ruled  with  a  strong  hand 
over  subject  traders  and  labourers  to  whom  they 
granted  neither  the  forms  nor  the  substance  of 
liberty. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  PROBLEM    OF  GOVERNMENT 

Bridport 

THE  comfortable  independence  in  which  the  towns- 
people of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries  had 
stoutly  entrenched  themselves,  was  the  reward 
of  a  couple  of  centuries  of  persistent  effort,  in 
which  they  had  steadily  laboured  at  their  double 
work  of  emancipation,  freeing  themselves  on  the  one 
hand  from  the  feudal  yoke,  and  on  the  other  from 
political  servitude.  Xo  independent  life  of  the 
community  could  arise  so  long  as  the  inhabitants  of 
a,  town  acknowledged  an  absolute  subjection  to  their 
feudal  lord,  and  bore  the  heavy  burdens  of  ser- 
vices and  taxes  which,  however  they  might  differ 
according  to  the  usages  of  the  several  manors, 
weighed  upon  the  people  everywhere  with  persistent 
and  intolerable  force.  The  lord  might  destroy  their 
industry  by  suddenly  calling  out  the  inhabitants  to 
follow  him  in  a  warlike  expedition,  or  demanding 
services  of  forced  labour  or  laying  on  them  grievous 


198          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

taxes  ;  his  officers  could  throw  the  artizan  or  merchant 
into  his  prison,  or  ruin  them  by  fines,  or  force  upon 
them  methods  of  law  hateful  and  dangerous  to  their 
conceptions  of  a  common  life  ;  as  he  claimed  supreme 
rights  over  the  soil  it  was  impossible  for  the  burgher 
to  leave  his  property  by  will ;  and  on  the  tenant's 
death  officers  visited  his  house  and  stables  and 
granaries  to  seize  the  most  valuable  goods  as  the 
lord's  relief.  It  was  necessary  to  gain  his  consent 
before  any  new  member  could  be  admitted  into  the 
fellowship  of  citizens  ;  and  without  his  permission  no 
inhabitant  might  leave  the  borough  to  carry  on  his 
trade  elsewhere.  He  could  forbid  the  marriage  of 
children  arranged  by  the  fathers,  or  refuse  to 
allow  a  widow  to  take  a  new  husband  and  so  make 
him  master  of  her  house  and  freeman  in  her  town. 
He  fixed  the  market  laws  and  the  market  tolls. 
He  forced  the  people  to  grind  at  his  mill  and  bake 
at  his  oven. 

If  therefore  the  burghers  were  ever  to  develope 
commerce,  or  gather  wealth,  or  form  an  organized 
society,  or  keep  order  in  their  streets,  it  was  before 
all  things  necessary  that  serfs  should  be  made  into 
freemen;  and  the  first  object  of  the  town  com- 
munities was  to  find  deliverance  by  purchase  or 
negociation  from  those  tyrannous  usages  by  which 
their  masters  pressed  most  heavily  on  them.  Vexatious 
feudal  obligations  were  commuted  for  fixed  pay- 
ments in  one  town  after  another  as  their  inhabitants 
grew  rich  and  independent.  A  bargain  was  made, 
for  instance,  with  the  lord  of  Preston  that  he  should 
no  longer  summon  any  burgess  to  follow  him  on  a 


vj  THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT  199 

warlike  expedition  which  lasted  more  than  one  day 
nor  imprison  on  any  accusation  whatever  a  townsman 
who  found  sureties ;  and  he  was  forced  to  sell  or 
renounce  the  right  of  compelling  the  people  to  carry 
their  corn  to  the  lord's  mill  or  oven  or  kiln,  and 
to  allow  any  householder  who  chose  to  build  an  oven 
on  his  own  ground.1  The  burgher  everywhere  be- 
came the  acknowledged  guardian  of  his  own  child- 
ren and  might  betroth  them  at  his  pleasure  ;  the 
right  of  widows  to  re-marry  was  secured  against 
any  interference  from  without ;  and  absolute  security 
was  given  to  every  citizen  that  under  no  circum- 
stances could  his  tenement  or  plot  of  ground  be 
claimed  by  any  superior  lord.2  When  the  bur- 
gesses of  Hereford  were  asked  by  a  neighbouring- 
town  to  give  an  account  of  their  constitution 
they  proudly  dwelt  upon  the  freedom  they  had 
won.  "We  do  not  use,"  they  say,  "to  do  fealty  or 
any  other  foreign  service  to  the  lord  of  the  fees 
for  our  tenements,  but  only  the  rents  arising  out 
of  the  said  tenements  ;  because  we  say  that  we  hold 
our  tenements  by  the  service  of  burgage,  or  as 

1  Custumal  in  History  of  Preston  Guild,  73-78.     As  late  as 
the  time  of  James  I.  lords    here    and  there    were    fighting    to 
keep  up  old  customs.     An  action  was  brought  by  a  lord  against  a 
townsman  of  Melton  for  not  baking    his  bread    at    the    lord's 
oven  ;  "  and  the  action,"  wrote  the  steward,  "  is  like  to  prove 
frequent,  for  the  lord's  court  there  is  scarce  able  to  preserve  his 
inheritance  in  this  custom  of  baking."     Lives  of  the  Berkeleys, 
ii.  342-3. 

2  If  a  Preston  burgher  died  suddenly,  neither  lord  nor  justices 
might  seize  his  lands,  which  passed  on  to  the  next  heir ;   only 
if  he  had  been  publicly  excommunicated  they  were  to  be  given  in 
alms.  Custumal.  Hist.  Preston  Guild,  77.    Compare  Luchaire  248. 


200         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

burgesses,  so  that  we  have  not  any  other  lord  between 
our  lord  the  king  and  us."  "  And  we  do  not  so 
use,"  they  add,  "  to  give  any  heriot  nor  mortuary 
to  any  one  at  the  death  of  any  of  the  citizens 
dying  within  the  said  city  or  suburbs,  for  any 
of  his  tenements."  Moreover  "  we  say  that  every 
citizen  of  the  city  or  suburbs  may  give  and  assign  their 
tenements  freely  and  quietly  as  well  in  health  as  in 
sickness,  when  and  to  whomsoever  they  please, 
whether  those  tenements  are  of  their  inheritance  or  of 
their  purchasing  or  getting,  without  any  malicious 
detracting  of  their  lord,  so  that  they  be  of  such  an 
age  and  no  less,  that  they  know  how  to  measure  a 
yard  of  cloth,  and  to  know  and  tell  twelve  pence."  l 
In  these  ways  and  in  many  others  by  which  personal 
freedom  was  checked  and  thwarted,  the  rights  of  the 
feudal  lord  were  irresistibly  swept  away  by  the 
pressure  of  growing  societies  of  active  traders  and 
artizans.2  But  the  need  for  political  emancipation  was 

1  Journ.  Arch.   Assoc.   xxvii.   471.     The  age    was   sometimes 
fixed  at  twelve,  sometimes  at    fourteen.     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix. 
244.)     The   burgher   had   no  power  to  leave  by  will  any  lands 
he    held    outside  the  town  liberties,  which    must    pass    to   the 
heir  appointed   by  the  common  law.     For  the  frauds  to   which 
this   might   give   rise,  see  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  x.  3,  87-9.       Wills 
bequeathing  land  were    read    publicly  in    the   borough    courts 
(Nottingham     Records,    i.     96),    arid     there    enrolled     by    the 
mayor  as  a  Court  of  Record.    The  muniments  of  Canterbury  show 
that   from  this   right  the  mayor     went    on    to    claim    probate, 
possibly  following  the  example  of  Lynn.     The  claim  was  perfectly 
illegal,  but  was  energetically  pressed. 

2  Birmingham,  which   under    Henry    the    Eighth   had    2,000 
houselings,  and  was  said  to  be  "  one  of  the  fairest  and  most  profit- 
able towns  to  the  King's  highness  in   all  the  shire"  (English 


vi  THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT  201 

no  less  urgent ;  and  here  the  way  to  liberty  was 
neither  simple  nor  easy.  A  very  hierarchy  of  powers 
held  the  path.  The  authority  which  the  lord  of  the 
manor  did  not  assume  was  exercised  by  the  sheriff  of 
the  county  ;  and  where  the  authority  of  the  sheriff 
ceased  the  supreme  right  of  the  king  began.  All 
government  and  jurisdiction  wTere  divided  among 
powers  in  high  places  ;  and  whatever  privileges  the 

Guilds,  247-9),  only  counted  in  Doomsday  nine  heads  of 
families.  In  1327  these  had  risen  to  seventy-five.  The  burghers 
first  won  the  lightening  of  feudal  dues,  when  Birmingham  was 
freed  from  ward  and  marriage,  heriot  and  relief,  so  that  if  a 
burgess  died  the  lord  could  only  take  his  best  weapon — a  bill  or 
a  pole-axe — or  forty  pence.  (Survey  of  the  Borough  and  Manor 
of  Birmingham,  1553.  Translated  by  "VV.  B.  Bickley,  with  notes  by 
Joseph  Hill,  pp.  xii.,  108.)  The  bailiff  and  commonalty  rented  the 
stalls  in  the  market  from  the  lord,  and  leased  them  out  by  their 
constables  to  the  townsfolk,  fishmongers,  butchers,  and  tanners, 
and  in  this  way  secured  complete  control  of  the  town  market  (pp. 
60-61),  where  burgesses  were  exempt  from  toll,  while  strangers 
free  of  the  market  paid  a  small  sum,  and  those  not  free  a  larger 
amount.  After  the  Plague  a  "  free  burgage  by  fealty  "  grew  up, 
with  an  oath  to  observe  the  customs  and  services  of  the  manor. 
The  normal  holding  of  the  villein  seems  to  have  been  forty-five 
acres,  that  of  the  cotters  less  (pp.  xii.,  xiii.  See  Rogers'  Agric. 
and  Prices,  i.  12,  298).  As  population  increased  new  pastures  in 
the  foreign  were  leased  out  for  a  term  of  years  at  an  annual  rent, 
and  while  the  increase  of  perpetual  free  tenures  thus  ceased  the 
alienation  of  the  whole  domain  was  prevented  (pp.  xiv.,  74, 102). 
Though  the  town  was  not  made  a  borough  by  royal  grant,  it  had 
even  in  the  thirteenth  century  secured  an  independent  life,  called 
itself  a  borough  and  elected  its  officers  (pp.  60-1,  108-9).  Its 
public  acts  were  done  under  the  style  of  "  bailiff  and  commonalty  " 
or  "bailiff  and  burgesses."  See  also  Manchester  Court  Leet 
Records,  12,  14,  169,  170.  For  examples  of  the  first  privileges 
which  the  townspeople  sought  to  win  see  the  "  customs "  of 
Newcastle  under  Henry  I.,  Stubbs'  Charters,  106-8. 


202          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

burghers  might  secure  must  be  won  here  a  little 
and  there  a  little,  bought  for  money,  or  snatched 
amid  the  distresses  and  calamities  of  their  masters,  or 
held  as  the  reward  of  importunate  persistence,  the 
tribute  to  successful  craft,  the  recompense  of  some 
timely  service  rendered. 

The  case  of  Bridport  illustrates  the  life  of  any 
provincial  town  in  early  times  whose  burghers  still 
served  many  masters.1  It  was  a  busy  little  trading 
community  in  the  thirteenth  century.  Hemp  was 
grown  in  its  fields  which  was  sent  to  Plympton  to 
be  made  into  rope  yarn,  returned  to  Bridport  to  be 
woven  into  ropes,  and  then  sent  back  again  to 
Plympton  for  sale,  or  fashioned  at  home  into  the 
girths,  horse-nets,  and  reins  for  which  the  Bridport 
men  were  famous.  The  inhabitants  had  won  a  con- 
siderable measure  of  self-rule.  They  elected  the  two 
bailiffs  who  were  at  the  head  of  their  local  govern- 
ment, presided  in  the  little  town  court,  and  doubt- 
less regulated  the  market  and  controlled  the  trade. 
These  two  had  under  them  under-bailiffs,  cofferers, 
and  constables  ;  and  were  assisted  by  twelve  jurors 
chosen  every  Michaelmas,  who  yearly  perambulated 
the  town  to  watch  over  its  boundaries,  and  who 
had  charge  of  the  "  parish  cheste "  or  coffin  and 
the  parish  bier,  and  of  the  pillory,  whipping  .post, 
and  cucking  stool.  Twelve  men  were  also  chosen  to 
conduct  any  business  in  which  Bridport  was  concerned. 
At  the  visits  of  the  king's  justices  they  were  sum- 
moned with  the  clerk  in  council  to  assist  in  the 
business  of  the  court ;  they  represented  their  fellow 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  vi.  491,  et  seq. 


VI  THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT  203 

burgesses  if  any  question  was  called  for  trial  before 
the  sheriffs  court  at  Dorchester,  or  if  a  dispute 
arose  with  the  bishop,  or  a  settlement  had  to  be 
made  with  the  convent  at  Abbotsbury. 

I.  The  powers  of  the  burgesses  however  were  shut 
up  within  the  narrowest  limits.    At  every  moment  of 
their  lives  some  authority  from  without  stepped  in  with 
rigorous  control  and  ceaseless  exactions.     The  Lord  of 
the  Manor  (who  in  this  particular  case  was  the  king) 
owned  the  soil  of  the  town ;    therefore    his  Steward 
kept  the  Law  Day,1  judged  the  petty  offences  of  the 
townsmen,    summoned  them  before  him  to  see  that 
each  was  properly  enrolled  under  the  system  of  frank- 
pledge,  and  swept  their  fines  and  forfeitures  into  the 
lord's  coffers.2 

II.  Bridport  further  owed  obedience  to  the  officers 
of  the  shire.  The  coroner  3  came  to  make  inquisition  in 
case  of  mysterious  or  violent  death  or  of  fire,  judged 
the  cause,  seized  forfeited  goods    or    chattels,    and 
assessed  the  fines.     The  sheriff  of  the  county  exer- 
cised a  jurisdiction  which  extended   over  the    most 

1  For  the  injuries  that  might  be  inflicted  on  a  community  by 
a    lord's  reeve,  see    Select  Pleas  in    Manorial    Courts,   Selden 
Society. 

2  If  the  lord  of  the  soil  held  the  town  as  a  market-town,  and 
not  as  a  borough,  the  inhabitants  had  to  attend  the  Sheriff's 
tourn,  where  their  petty  offences  were  judged  by  him  or  his  deputy. 
In  all  cases  which  were   not   specially  exempted    they  had   to 
appear  also  twice  a  year  at  the  court  of  the  shire  for  view  of 
frank  pledge  and  for   judgment  of  their  more  serious  crimes. 
Manchester  Court  Leet  Records,  14. 

3  The  coroner  was  an  officer  elected  in  full  county  court,  and 
was  charged  with  guarding  the  interests  of  the  Crown.     His 
intrusion  in  the  towns  was  much  resented. 


-204         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

important  affairs  of  the  community,  and  touched  at 
every  point  the  daily  life  of  the  burghers.  That  his 
supervision  might  be  constant  and  effectual,  he  was 
accustomed  to  appoint  a  deputy  or  under-sheriff  to 
represent  him  on  the  spot,  generally  some  man  of 
importance  in  Bridport  itself,  who  living  in  the 
centre  of  the  town  could  keep  a  close  watch  on  its 
affairs  and  manage  them  with  a  more  exact  control. 
It  was  the  sheriff's  business  to  keep  order,  and  guard 
against  breaches  of  the  king's  law.  At  stated  times 

o  O 

lie  called  the  town  bailiff  and  constable  to  appear 
at  his  court  at  Dorchester ;  crimes  which  lay  beyond 
the  control  of  the  manor  court  were  brought  to 
judgment  before  him  and  fines,  or  the  gifts  that 
averted  fines,1  reminded  the  burghers  of  his  power. 
As  head  of  the  shire  forces  he  ordered  at  his  own 
will  the  muster-at-arms  of  the  townsmen,  and  in 
times  of  disturbance  called  out  the  levies  for  the 
king's  service  ;  he  fixed  the  number  of  archers  and 
fighting  men ;  he  regulated  the  contribution  of 
bows  and  arrows,  of  hemp  and  cord,  of  corn  or  wine 
or  fish.  Year  by  year  he  assessed  and  levied  the 
royal  taxes,2  and  collected  the  rent  due  from  the 
borough  to  the  king's  exchequer.  Payments  were 
not  made  in  money  in  such  a  town  as  Bridport ;  so 
when  the  rent  day  came  near  the  sheriff  or  his  deputy 
first  drew  up  a  list  of  oxen  and  other  goods  which 

1  When  a  robber  from  Bridport  escaped  from  the  town  prison 
a  set  of  girths  or  horse-nets  was  sent  by  the  town  to  Dorchester 
to  mitigate  the  sheriff's  anger. 

-  For  abuses  in  appointing  tax  collectors,  see  Paston  Let- 
ters, i.  li. 


vi  THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT  205 

were  to  be  given  up  by  the  various  inhabitants  and  ulti- 
mately sold  on  the  Monday  after  Palm  Sunday  for 
the  ferm.  Meanwhile  this  list  was  handed  over  to  the 
charge  of  the  "  bailiff- errant,"  who  travelled  from 
town  to  town  with  his  clerk  and  groom l  on  the 
business  of  the  shire  ;  and  certain  citizens  were  made 
responsible  for  the  safety  of  the  cattle  and  goods 
until  the  appointed  day.  The  choice  of  goods  to  be 
taken  from  each  person,  the  chance  of  accident 
before  the  day  of  sale,  the  naming  of  citizens  who 
were  to  bear  the  charges  of  making  good  any  pos- 
sible loss,  the  various  fortunes  of  the  auction  and 
of  the  prices  it  might  bring,  the  skilful  calculations 
necessary  to  ensure  that  however  much  the  profits 
might  exceed  the  needed  sum  they  should  never  fall 
short  of  it — all  these  things  created  at  every  turn  new 
chances  of  corruption,  new  hopes  of  profit  to  those  in 
authority,  and  new  prospects  of  ruin  to  those  under 
the  law.2  The  division  of  powers  between  the  sheriff 
and  his  deputies,  and  the  practical  impossibility  of 
fixing  any  responsibility  or  of  calling  any  one  of 
them  to  account,  left  the  inhabitants  mere  creatures 
at  mercy,  subject  to  varied  and  fortuitous  hardship  ; 
while  on  the  other  hand  the  art  of  government 
became  to  every  one  concerned  in  it  a  mere  business 
of  self-preservation.  When  John  in  1216  sent  a  com- 
mission to  collect  the  ferm  of  Northampton  which  had 
fallen  into  arrears,  the  commissioner  was  informed 
that  the  king  could  not  afford  payment  either  for 
himself  or  for  his  servants,  and  that  he  must  there- 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  vi.  491. 

2  See  Round's  Geoffrey  de  Mandeville,  361-3. 


206          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

fore  provide  as  best  he  could  for  their  salaries  and 
provisions  out  of  the  arrears  of  the  ferm  which  he 
was  sent  to  collect.1  Such  a  system  quickened  zeal 
on  the  part  of  officials,  if  it  did  not  lighten  the 
troubles  of  the  people.  In  those  days  every  officer  in 
the  scale,  from  the  sheriff  to  the  constable,  subject  to 
the  claims  and  exactions  of  his  immediate  superior, 
could  only  indemnify  himself  by  exercising  a  corre- 
sponding pressure  on  those  below  him,  and  passing  on 
the  tradition  of  fraud  and  tyranny. 

It  would  be  hard  to  say  whether  the  sheriff's  position 
as  tax-gatherer,  as  judge,  or  as  recruiting  officer  and 
military  leader,  gave  him  the  largest  opportunities  for 
extortion  and  tyranny ;  but  so  long  as  every  office 
that  he  held  added  new  pretences  for  arbitrary 
interference,  the  townspeople  were  driven  to  win 
his  favour  by  frequent  gifts,  whether  to  himself 
or  to  his  wife,  which  indeed  his  deputies  were  strict 
in  levying  when  voluntary  action  proved  tardy.  He 
generally  required  a  "year  gift"  from  towns  under 
his  control,  either  to  induce  him  not  to  come  within 
their  liberties,  or  to  remind  him  to  "  shew  his 
friendship  "  to  the  inhabitants  in  their  necessities  ; 2 
and  it  was  a  common  custom,  when  money  fell 
short,  to  make  collection  by  means  of  a  "  scot-ale,"  3 
and  summon  the  townsfolk  to  a  drinking  feast  where 

1  Close  Rolls,  I.  p.  273,  1216.       2  Nottingham  Records,  i.  46. 

3  This  appears  in  the  records  of  Gloucester.  The  scot-ale  was 
a  very  common  method  of  collecting  money  for  other  purposes. 
See  Malrnesbury,  Gross,  ii.  172,  Newcastle  (183),  Wallingford 
(245),  Winchester  (253),  Cambridge  (358).  It  was  an  article  of 
inquiry  for  Justices  Itinerant  in  1254.  (417)  Stubbs'  Charters, 
258-259. 


vi  THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT  207 

they  were  bound  to  contribute  a  supply  of  pro- 
visions, and  to  spend  a  certain  sum  at  the  ale-booths 
set  up  for  the  day,  while  the  proceeds  of  the  whole 
entertainment  went  into  the  sheriff's  pocket.  Modes 
of  extortion,  however,  might  vary  infinitely.  In 
Canterbury  the  sheriff  once  broke  down  the  only 
bridge  over  the  river,  and  so  kept  it  for  three  months, 
while  he  put  a  ferry  boat  on  the  water  which  the 
people  were  forced  to  use  and  pay  for  on  his  own  terms.1 
The  confessed  superiority  of  these  officials  in  the  arts 
of  fraud  and  tyranny  was  proclaimed  by  the  universal 
fear  and  hate  which  followed  them — passions  whicli 
break  out  in  the  popular  ballads  where  by  a  traditional 
touch  the  people's  hero,  Robin  Hood,  is  endowed  with 
the  hatred  of  all  sheriffs ;  and  wrhich  stir  the  heart  of 
the  writer  of  Piers  Ploughman  as  he  pictures  these 
officers  in  the  foremost  place  wherever  there  is  a 
gathering  of  the  servants  of  corruption,  and  in  his 
parable  of  the  Lady  Meed  travelling  to  the  Court 
tells  how  it  was  a  sheriff  who  was  appointed  to  bear 
her  softly  in  a  litter  from  Assize  to  Assize  with 
tenderest  care  for  her  safety,  since  "  sheriffs  of  shires 
were  shent  (undone)  if  she  were  not."  2 

III.  The  sheriff  however  was  but  the  deputy  of  the 
crown,  and  the  sovereign  rights  of  the  King  lay  be- 
hind and  above  all  subordinate  authority  whatever. 

1  Hundred  Rolls,  i.  49,  55.      The  jurors  of  Bridgenorth  com- 
plained in  1221  that  the  sheriff's  bailiffs  and  the  men  of  the 
country  had  committed  to  them  the  duty  of  following  the  trail  of 
stolen  cattle  through  their  town  and   fined  them  if  they  failed, 
whereas  they  could  not  follow  a  trail  through  the  middle  of  the 
town.     Select  Pleas  of  the  Crown,  Selden  Society,  113. 

2  Piers  Ploughman,  Pass.  iii.  59,  177,  ir.  172. 


208          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

\Ylien  a  royal  messenger  rode  through  the  gates  of  a 
town  the  officers  of  the  lord  of  the  manor  and  of  the 
shire  alike  acknowledged  a  higher  law  ;  and  such  mes- 
sengers were  not  rare.  The  sheriff's  accustomed  rule 
was  set  aside  whenever  judges  from  Westminster  sat 
in  the  church  or  the  Guild  Hall  to  administer  the 
justice  of  the  King's  Court.  Sometimes  the  king's 
escheator  came  to  investigate  into  lapsed  estates,  to 
ascertain  whether  any  socage  tenants  had  died,  and 
claim  the  customary  fines.1  From  time  to  time 
Court  officials  "carrying  the  mace  of  the  lord  the  king  " 
appeared  to  announce  statutes  or  ordinances  made  in 
Parliament ;  or  came  as  unwelcome  commissioners  to 
ask  for  benevolences  and  loans.  The  king's  clerk  of 
the  market 2  might  ride  into  the  town  with  a  troop  of 
horses  and  followers  carrying  weights  and  measures 
signed  with  the  sign  of  the  exchequer ;  he  would  call 

1  For  the  profits  to  be  made  in  this  business  and  its   oppor- 
tunities   of  fraud,  see   Winchelsea  (Rot.    Parl.    i.  373).     Some- 
times the  escheator  divided  the  fines  levied  between  himself  and 
the  King ;  in  other  cases  the  office  was  farmed  out  and  the  King- 
took  a  fixed  sum  leaving  the  escheator  a  free  hand  to  do  what  he 
pleased.     In  the  towns  the  office  was  finally  given  to  the  mayor 
at  a  fixed  salary.     The  Mayor  of  Norwich  received  as  escheator 
£10 ;    that  is,   an  equal  salary  to  that    which    he    received    as 
Mayor   (Blomefield,  iii.    179).     As  Mayor  of  the  Staple  he  was 
given  £20.     (Ibid.  iii.  94.) 

2  He  was  forbidden  by  Richard  the  Second  to  ride  with  more 
than  six  horses,  or  tarry  long  in  a  town.   (Statutes,  13  Richard  II.  1, 
cap.  4,  and  16  Richard  II.,  cap.  3.)    In  1346  the  King  by  charter 
freed  Norwich  from  "  the  clerk  of  the  market  of  our  household," 
so  that  he  should  not  enter  the  city  to  make  the  assay  of  measures 
or  weights,  or  any  other  duties  belonging  to  his  office.      (Norwich 
Doc.,  pr.  1884,  case  of  Stanley  r.  Mayor,  &c.,  p.  26.)     For  clerk 
of  the  market  in  Calais,  Lives  of  Berkeleys,  ii.  198. 


vi  THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT 


209 


for  all  the  town  measures,  test  them  by  his  models, 
see  that  the  false  ones  were  burned,  and  then  claim  a 
fresh  relay  of  horses  to  carry  him  on  to  his  next 
stage.  If  the  sovereign  chose  he  might  send  an 
officer  under  the  assize  of  arms  to  "  sit  at  Bridport  to 
array  the  men  "  and  call  for  archers  for  the  king's 
service  ;  or  in  case  of  need  the  kino-'s  "  harbinger  "  or 

<_>  o 

"  sergeant-at-arms  "  came  to  judge  how  many  soldiers 
should  be  billeted  on  the  inhabitants.  In  time  of  re- 
bellion or  civil  war,1  suspicion  of  disaffection  might 
fall  upon  the  town,  and  then  commissioners  travelled 
from  London  to  hold  a  special  "  inquisition  "  on  the 
spot. 

IV.  All  these  officers  represented  the  king  as  supreme 
head  of  the  law  ;  but  other  messengers  came  from  the 
court,  as  unbidden  and  unwelcome  as  the  last,  who 
claimed  for  the  sovereign  a  tribute  which  belonged  to 
his  personal  dignity  and  state.  When  the  monarch 
travelled  he  carried  his  own  law  with  him ;  wherever 
he  went  the  steward  and  marshal  of  his  house  had 
jurisdiction  for  twelve  miles  to  be  counted  from 
the  lodging  of  the  king  ;  2  and  their  authority  super- 
seded all  other  law  whether  of  the  borough  or  the 
shire.  The  marshal  demanded  such  supply  of  horses 
as  was  necessary  for  the  king  or  his  messengers  ;3  the 

1  Hist.  MSB.  Com.  v.  545. 

2  Statutes,  13th  Richard  II.,  1,  cap.  3. 

3  In  Rochester  "  the   King's  hackney-men "  took    oath  to    be 
ready  at  all  times,  early  and  late,  to  serve  the  King's  Grace  with 
able  hackney  horses  at  the  calling  of  the  Mayor,  and  to  provide 
at  all  times  for  any  man  riding  on  the  King's  message,  and  to 
give  information  to  the  Mayor  in  case  any  hard-driven  hackney- 
man  in  the  town  "  purloin  or  hide  any  of  their  able  hackney  horses 

VOL.    I  1' 


210          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUKV       CHAP. 

purveyors  and  larderers  and  officers  of  the  household 
levied  provisions  on  all  townsfolk,1  save  the  few  who 
had  been  lucky  enough  to  gain  the  king's  grant  of 
protection,2  seized  what  they  needed  of  their  corn  and 
bread  and  salted  meats,  called  out  the  inhabitants 
for  forced  labour,  billeted  the  crowd  that  made  up  the 
royal  train  on  the  various  householders,3  and  in  fact 
governed  at  their  own  will  any  town  through  which 
the  king  passed.  A  happy  obscurity  and  distance 
from  the  court  could  alone  preserve  a  little  borough 
like  Bridport  from  exactions  of  royal  travellers  ;  and 
its  people  might  bear  with  resignation  a  poverty  and 
insignificance  which  at  least  protected  them  .from  evils 

in  any  privy  places,  whereby  the  King's  service  may  be  hindered, 
prolonged,  or  undone."  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  287.)  For  Romney 
see  Lyon's  Dover,  ii.  341.  In  some  towns  certain  innkeepers 
had  letters  patent  to  require  horses  and  carts  for  the  King's 
service.  The  right  was  greatly  abused,  and  such  patents  declared 
void  by  Statute.  (28  Henry  VI.  cap.  2.) 

1  For  purveyors,  Rogers'  Agric.  and  Prices,  1.,  119,  166. 
Brinklow's  Complaint,  19,  20.  Rot.  Parl.  i.  400.  At  Lynn 
the  King's  Larderer  would  claim  ships  to  go  out  fishing  for 
the  King's  provisions,  or  perhaps  to  carry  5,000  fish  for  the 
King's  household.  (Hist.  MSS.  Corn.  xi.  3,  188-9.)  As  late  as 
1493  it  was  necessary  for  Canterbury  (which  had  been  freed  by 
charter  from  these  exactions  in  1414)  to  get  a  "breve"  from 
Henry  the  Seventh  to  give  its  inhabitants  a  summary  means  of 
resisting  the  demands  of  the  King's  Purveyors.  (Ibid.  ix.  168.) 
For  seizing  of  carts,  see  Nottingham  Records,  i.  118.  The 
King's  cart-takers  in  the  seventeenth  century,  Hist.  MSS.  Com. 
v.  407. 

-  Instances  in  Chester,  1282,  Hemingway's  Chester,  i.  132. 

'  Among  the  Bristol  liberties  was  one  that  no  burgess  nor 
inhabitant  of  Bristol  shall  against  his  will  receive  none  host  into 
his  house  by  lyverance  of  the  King's  Marshall.  (Ricart,  24.) 


vi  THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT  211 

of    so    great   magnitude    to     poor    and    over-tasked 
workers. 

V.  There  was  yet  another  form  in  which  the  power 
of  the  crown  pressed  upon  the  inhabitants  of  a  borough. 
Privileges  granted  by  the  king  might  be  withdrawn  at 
his  caprice  ;  and  the  burghers  lay  absolutely  at  his 
mercy  for  all  the  liberties  and  rights  which  they 
enjoyed.  At  the  beginning  of  every  reign  the  con- 
firmation of  their  charters,  and  the  affixing  of  the 
new  king's  seal,  had  to  be  won  by  such  payments  and 
bribes  as  the  officials  in  high  places  judged  that  the 
burghers  could  afford.1  The  king  might  at  any 
moment  raise  a  question  as  to  the  value  of  their 
charters  ;  or  he  might  make  some  public  revolution 

1  Instances  of  the  necessity  for  new  grants  and  confirmations 
and  the  heavy  consequent  expenses  are  too  numerous  to  quote. 
In  Canterbury  £36  was  paid  in  1460  for  a  new  charter,  and 
other  payments  connected  with  the  same  business  were  made  in 
the  following  year.  In  1472  messengers  were  sent  to  London 
for  the  obtaining  again  of  a  charter  of  liberties.  Two  years 
later  an  envoy  rode  to  London  to  treat  with  the  Treasurer,  Lord 
Essex,  about  a  writ  of  proviso  touching  the  liberties  of  the  city, 
and  a  grant  was  then  made,  probably  in  return  for  heavy  pay- 
ment, which  confirmed  a  recent  restoration  of  ancient  privileges. 
A  magnificent  supper  given  to  Lord  Essex  expressed  the  gratitude 
of  the  city.  In  1474  the  city  paid  for  a  proviso  to  confirm  the 
restorations  of  their  liberties.  In  1475  there  was  an  investiga- 
tion in  camera  of  the  charters  and  muniments  concerning  the 
bounds  of  the  liberty;  and  in  1481  payments  were  made  to  friends 
and  patrons  who  had  helped  them  with  the  King  in  preserving  the 
liberties  of  the  city.  At  the  accession  of  Henry  the  Seventh  it 
became  necessary  to  buy  renewal  and  confirmation  of  the  charter, 
and  this  was  completed  in  1487.  In  1490  the  Mayor  conferred 
with  Cardinal  Morton  on  the  renewal  and  extension  of  the 
liberties  of  the  city.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  140  et  seq.,  170.)  See 
Romney,  Ibid.  v.  534-5,  537,  539,  543-4. 

P  2 


212          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

or  local  disturbance  the  occasion  for  a  revision  or  a 
threatened  withdrawal  of  ancient  "  customs."  l  When 
their  rights  were  menaced  the  townsmen  had  but  one 
resource,  and  hastily  met  together,  as  in  the  case  of 
Bridport,  to  order  by  the  "  common  assent "  that 
reins  and  horse  nets  should  be  provided  at  the  public 
cost  and  sent  to  London,  for  "  furthering  the  common 
business." 

For  the  whole  of  this  complicated  system  of 
administration  was  kept  in  working  order  by  a  gen- 
erous system  of  bribes — bribes  given  largely  and 
openly,  registered  in  the  public  accounts,  and  granted 
indifferently  to  any  official,  great  or  small,  who- 

•J  J  '        O 

might  be  induced  by  a  timely  gift  to  "  show  his  friend 
ship."  Towns  won  the  renewal  or  the  preservation 
of  their  chartered  rights  by  offerings  to  king  or  queen, 
to  chancellors  and  bishops  and  great  officers  of  the 
household,  with  whom  they  interceded  by  the  aid  of 
a  "  cow-pull  "  of  swans  or  cygnets  or  heronshaws, 
a  porpoise,  a  store  of  dried  sprats,  or  a  cask  of 
wine.  "  The  law  is  ended  as  a  man  is  friended," 
said  the  wise  folk  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  if  any 
legal  question  arose  the  town  could  only  "  have  a 
verdict  "  when  due  "  courtesies,"  as  they  were  called, 
were  prepared  for  justices  and  their  clerks,  barons  of 
the  exchequer  and  sheriffs  and  counsel  and  attorneys, 
besides  any  sums  required  to  pay  a  "  friendly  "  jury.2 

1  Writ  of  inquisition  as  to  privileges  of  Cinque  Ports.      (Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  vi.  544.)     The  instance  of  charters  forfeited  on  these 
grounds  are  very  frequent. 

2  In  Southampton  a  hogshead  of  Gascony  wine  was  given  "  by 
common  consent  "  to  the  sheriff  to  have  his  friendship  in  the 


vi  THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT  213 

If  the  king  sent  pressing  and  overwhelming  demands 
for  money,  a  deputation  of  leading  burghers  would 
hurry  up  to  Westminster,  carrying  gifts  and  bribes  to 
the  Clerk  of  the  Rolls  and  the  usher  of  Parliament 
as  a  peace  offering.1  Or  some  gracious  patron  might 
be  persuaded  to  divert  from  the  town  "  a  quest  of  the 
Admiralty,  that  it  would  not  come  thither  as  was  in- 
tended to  come."2  When  men  were  called  out  for 
war  the  community  would  consult  by  what  gifts  or 
"  courtesies  "  it  might  arrange  "  to  have  pardoning 
that  we  should  not  ride  up  so  many  men  as  the 
said  warrant  commanded." 3  At  the  appearance  of 
the  King's  harbinger  or  sergeant-at-arms  the  first 
thought  was  to  collect  a  sum  which  might  induce 
their  formidable  guest  to  limit  the  number  of  troops 
billeted  on  the  town,  or  even  to  march  them  away 
altogether.4  In  the  same  way  if  a  messenger  ap- 
peared bearing  part  of  the  body  of  a  traitor  who 
had  been  executed,  which  by  the  King's  orders 

return  of  a  jury.  In  1428  a  sum  of  13*.  4</.  was  paid  for  return- 
ing "  friends  of  the  town  "  on  a  jury  to  settle  a  question  which 
had  arisen  between  the  King  and  Southampton  as  to  which  was 
to  have  the  goods  and  chattels  of  a  felon  who  had  run  away. 
(Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  3,  140,  142.)  See  also  Ibid.  v.  518. 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  539.     The  Lieutenant  of   Dover,  who 
settled  the  amount  and   division   of  benevolences  required  from 
the  Cinque  Ports,  had  also  his  offerings  from  the  various  towns 
that  they  might  be  well  dealt  with.     (Ibid.  v.  527.) 

2  Ibid.  v.    528.     These  courts  on  the   sea-shore    meant  con- 
siderable expense  in  fees  and  feasts. 

3  Hist.   MSS.   Com.   v.  491.     In  1474  money  was  given  by 
Canterbury  to  Kyriel,  that  he  might  excuse  the  city  from  sending 
men  and  ships  to  the  war.     (Ibid.  ix.  143.) 

4  Ibid.  v.  518,  522. 


•214          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

was  to  be  set  up  on  the  gate  of  the  borough,  the 
inhabitants  would  give  him  a  present  to  carry  on  his 
burden  to  some  other  town.1 

Counted  among  the  usual  incidents  of  government, 
and  reckoned  in  the  ordinary  expenditure  of  the 
municipality,  the  payment  of  such  bribes  was  to  all 
concerned  merely  the  customary  mode  of  defraying 
some  of  the  expenses  of  administration  ;  2  and  the 
public  sense  acquiesced  in  a  prudent  and  necessary 
method  of  carrying  on  the  affairs  of  state.  Gifts 
to  great  officials  were  not  tokens  of  servitude  re- 
quired only  from  dependent  towns,  but  a  tribute 
levied  as  rigorously  from  the  free  boroughs.  The 
bribes  demanded  were  not  less  in  number ;  the  main 
difference  was  that  they  went  into  different  pockets. 
Thus  the  offerings  required  from  Canterbury  when 
its  municipal  existence  was  most  vigorous  and  self- 
dependent,  were  naturally  on  a  scale  unexampled  in 
a  little  place  such  as  Bridport.3  The  gifts  of  the 
town  were  scattered  far  and  wide  ;  a  pike  to  a  London 
lawyer,  wine  to  Master  John  Fineux  the  justiciar,  a 
conger  eel  to  the  Dean  of  Windsor,  wine  to  the  chan- 
cellor of  the  Archbishop  of  York,  payments  to  the 
Bishop  of  Winchester  that  the  city  might  "  have  his 
mediation,"  gifts  to  Cardinal  Beaufort  to  win  his  help 

L  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  543.  Three  and  foul-pence,  and  18d. 
for  a  pair  of  boots  as  a  reward. 

2  See  in  Winchester  the  gifts  to  the  coroner's  clerk,  to  jurors 
at  the  Pavilion,  to  the  King's  taxers,  to  the  wife  of  the  Sheriff, 
to  the  Bailiff  of  the  Soke  of  "\Vinton,  and  so  on.     (Hist.  MSS. 
Com.  vi.  595-605.) 

3  Hist,    MSS.    Com.   xi.   part   3,    138-149.     The   expenses   at 
Lynn  were  very  great.     (Ibid.  218-225.) 


vr  THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT  215 

when  it  was  proposed  to  chaiige  the  municipal  constitu- 
tion, offerings  to  the  Bishop  of  St.  David's — who 
nominally  got  a  double  supply,  one  present  being  pro- 
vided for  the  Episcopus  Menevensis  and  another  for 
the  Episcopus  de  Seynt  Taffey1  to  "  have  their  friend- 
ship "  with  the  King  in  the  anxious  days  of  1483. 
Eoyal  dukes  and  court  officers,  bishops,  chamberlains, 
notaries,  clerks  of  the  Eolls,  knights  who  had  access 
to  the  -palace,  sheriffs,  judges  of  the  king's  court, 
were  sumptuously  feasted,  and  messengers  knocked 
at  the  doors  of  their  lodgings  laden  with  pheasants, 
cygnets,  capons,  rams,  oxen,  geese,  with  Ehenish  wine, 
wine  of  Tyre,  claret,  muscatel,  and  red  wine  and 
white  by  thirty  or  fifty  gallons  at  a  time.  In  the 
revolutionary  times  of  1470  the  citizens  were  un- 
luckily associated  with  the  party  of  Henry  the  Sixth, 
and  for  years  after  their  wealth  was  lavished  in  buying 
back  the  favour  of  the  court.  The  Duchess  of  York, 
who  had  once  been  accustomed  to  receive  her  tribute 
of  Ehenish  wine,  red  wine,  and  wine  of  Tyre,  visited 
the  city  in  1471,  when  her  son  was  in  difficulties  ;  but 
the  prudent  citizens  now  only  offered  the  poor  lady 
"  for  bread  12f/."  On  the  other  hand  when  Edward 
was  again  triumphant  officers  and  commissioners  of 
the  king  of  every  degree  accepted  pheasants,  geese, 
capons  and  red  wine.  The  burghers  presented  to  the 
Duke  of  Clarence  a  load  of  claret  and  capons  which 
it  took  four  men  to  carry.  Soon  after  when  the  King's 

1  Doubtless  a  scribe's  error  for  Llandaff.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com. 
ix.  145.)  The  Bishop  of  St.  David's  writes  that  "  in  many  great 
cities  and  towns  were  great  sums  of  money  given  him  which  he 
hath  refused." 


216          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAI-. 

Chamberlain  came  to  Canterbury,  lie  was  given  his 
dinner  at  the  "  Swan,"  one  of  the  inns  belonging  to 
the  corporation,  where  he  feasted  off  "  a  wild  beast 
called  a  bukk  "  which  had  been  brought  from  Westen- 
hanger  ;  and  after  the  dinner  eight  men  carried  a 
peace-offering  to  his  inn,  two  swans,  two  fat  capons, 
four  capons,  four  pheasants,  fifty-six  gallons  of  red 
wine,  and  half  a  gallon  of  muscatel ;  and  shortly 
after  another  tribute  was  sent  up  to  him  in  London.1 

But  behind  this  customary  system  of  bribes  and 
gifts  lay  the  deep  and  permanent  trouble  of  perpetual 
uncertainty  and  dread.  Everywhere  authority  came 
home  to  the  unhappy  subjects  as  a  mere  matter  of 
arbitrary  and  violent  caprice,  and  the  main  function 
of  government  as  that  of  rough  extortion  and 
successful  pillage  ;  while  the  recognition  of  privilege 
on  every  side  blotted  out  all  sense  of  equality  before 
the  la\v,  and  the  weak,  knowing  all  their  helplessness, 
were  as  anxious  to  buy  the  commodity  of  protection, 
as  the  powerful,  conscious  of  their  might,  were  willing 
to  make  a  gain  of  it.  Canterbury  sought  the  patron- 
age of  leading  people  in  the  county  or  the  court ; 2 
Norwich  profited,  so  long  as  he  was  in  favour,  by  the 
protection  of  Suffolk ;  York  gratefully  recognised 
the  services  of  the  Duke  of  Gloucester.  When  he 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  141-3. 

2  At  the  important  meeting  in  1474,  when  the  constitution  of 
the  town  was  reaffirmed,  William  Haute,  the  lord  of  the  manor  of 
Bishopsbourne  (four  miles  away),  who  was  then  patron  of  the 
town,  was  put  at  the  head  of  the  list  before  even  the  five  alder- 
men, the  sheriff,  or  any  town  officers,  as  establishing  and  ordaining 
the   town    ordinances.       Poynings,    Browne,   Guildford,  were  at 
different  times  patrons  of  the  city. 


vi  THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT  217 

passed  through  the  city,  an  order  was  sent  out  by  the 
corporation  that  every  alderman  and  council  man 
in  livery,  and  every  member  of  any  craft  in  his  best 
array,  should  go  out  to  meet  him  at  the  gate — the 
commoners  being  in  their  places  by  the  early  dawn, 
at  three  of  the  morning,  the  grand  people  an  hour 
later  in  consideration  of  their  rank.  In  1482  the 
Duke  acted  as  mediator  between  the  city  and  the 
King  in  the  matter  of  the  election  of  a  mayor,  and 
the  council  agreed  that  in  regard  of  "  the  great 
labour  of  the  good  and  benevolent  lordship,"  that 
he  "  have  at  all  times  done  for  the  weal  of  this  city/' 
the  whole  community  should  join  in  giving  him 
"  a  laud  and  thank ;  "  and  the  aldermen  dressed  in 
scarlet,  with  the  Council  of  Twenty-four  in  murrey 
or  crimson,  attended  at  the  mayor's  house  to  present 
the  Duke  with  a  gift  of  all  kinds  of  wine  and  fish, 
and  lead  a  procession  of  the  whole  commonalty  to 
his  lodging  at  the  Friar  Austins.1 

Patronage  and  protection,  however,  were  dearly 
bought  at  all  times,  and  at  any  moment  their  price, 
determined  by  the  reckless  habits  of  a  lord,  or 
the  necessity  of  a  king,  or  the  greed  of  a  sheriff, 
might  be  raised  so  as  to  bring  years  of  confusion 
to  municipal  finances.  Demands  sudden  and  irreg- 
ular, which  no  wisdom  could  calculate  beforehand 
and  no  prudence  could  avert,  wasted  the  substance  of 
the  people  ;  and  thrifty  burghers  learned  to  measure 
their  progress  to  independence  by  their  success 

1  Davies'  York,  128-9,  123-5.  For  an  interesting  instance 
of  beneficent  protection  in  1605,  see  Hibbert's  Influence  and 
Development  of  Guilds,  p.  95. 


218          TOWX  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CEXTUEY       CHAP. 

in  limiting  the  pleas  which  the  great  could  urge 
as  reasons  for  levying  toll  and  tribute  on  their 
labour.  The  love  of  liberty  was  forced  on  them  by 
the  practical  needs  of  life.  A  people  long  used  to 
hardship,  dependent  on  the  capricious  mercy  of 
their  masters,  subject  without  appeal  to  imposi- 
tions laid  on  them  by  the  stronger  hand,  they 
learned  by  daily  experience  that  government  by 
laws  made  without  their  own  consent,  and  admin- 
istered by  officers  imposed  on  them  against  their 
will,  was  the  very  definition  of  slavery.  By  a  rude 
experience  of  alien  officials  they  were  effectually 
taught  that  the  first  necessity  of  a  free  community 
was  the  right  of  choosing  its  own  governors,  that 
the  control  of  life  and  goods  and  the  responsi- 
bilities of  any  office  of  honour  and  profit  and  trust 
in  the  town  should  no  longer  be  entrusted  to 
strangers,  but  committed  into  the  hands  of  their 
own  fellow  citizens,  of  whose  fidelity,  patriotism, 
and  credit  they  could  assure  themselves.  It  was 
impossible  that  all  the  fortunes  of  their  commerce 
should  hang  on  the  will  of  some  distant  master 
whose  faculty  of  ruling  them  in  all  their  concerns 
rested  on  the  mere  superiority  of  power ;  and  traders 
everywhere  demanded  authority  to  order  their  own 
business,  and  rule  their  markets.  The  inhabit- 
ants of  a  town  could  not  claim  the  property  in 
their  own  borough  till  they  had  secured  the  right 
of  holding  it  directly  from  the  crown  at  a  yearly 
rent  which  they  themselves  should  pay  into  the 
exchequer  at  Westminster ; l  and  even  then  their 
1  The  election  of  a  Mayor  as  a  responsible  person  through 


vi  THE  PKOBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT  219 

privileged  existence  was  a  mere  matter  of  royal 
caprice  till  they  found  means  to  have  the  cor- 
porate succession  of  the  borough  legally  recognized.1 
Their  municipality  was  threatened  with  financial 
calamities  unless  the}'  could  win  exemption  from 
the  Statute  of  Mortmain,  and  obtain  the  right  of 
holding  property  for  the  town's  good.2  The  bond- 
age under  which  they  lay  to  the  sheriff3  and  tax- 
gatherer  could  only  be  broken  when  they  were  given 
full  powers  to  assess  and  collect  all  their  own 
taxes.4  Vexed  and  impoverished  by  journeys  to 

whom  the  King  could  deal  with  the  town  was  probably  often 
connected  with  the  settlement  of  the  fee-farm  rent.  In  Liver- 
pool the  first  mention  of  a  Major  is  in  1356,  the  very  next  year 
the  fee-farm  was  granted  to  the  Mayor  and  others  on  behalf 
of  the  burgesses  for  ten  years.  (Picton,  Municipal  Records  of 
Liverpool,  i.  13-15.) 

1  As   against    the    idea    of    Merewether   and    Stephens,    that 
charters  of  municipal  incorporation  only   began    in    1439,   Dr. 
Gross  points  out  that  such  a  charter  occurs  in  1345,  that  in  the 
time  of  Edward  the  First  the  technical  conception  of  municipal 
incorporation  was  familiar,   and  that  long  before  the   judicial 
conception  came  into  being  the  borough  had  a  real  corporate 
existence,  and  exercised  all  the  functions  of  a  corporate  body. 
(Gild  Merchant,  i.  93,  etc.) 

2  In  1391  the  Statute  of  Mortmain  was  extended  to  cities  and 
boroughs.     (Statutes,  15  Richard  II.,  cap.  5.)    Even  when  license 
to  hold  land  was  granted  by  the  Crown  the  amount  was  strictly 
limited,  and  the  power  of  refusal  or  of  limitation  was  a  seriou.-: 
consideration  to  the  town. 

3  According  to  Mr.  Round,  London  found  means  of  annexing 
the  shire  of  Middlesex  instead  of  asking  to  be  separated  from  it. 
(Geoffrey  de  Maiideville,  347-373.) 

4  We  have  a  hint  of  a  troublesome  mode  of  interference  with 
the  municipal  taxation  in  an  incident  in  Norwich  in  1268,  when 
"the  lord  the  King  commanded  all  his  bailiffs  that,  for  a  jine 


:^0          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

distant  courts  for  justice,  harassed  by  the  inter- 
ference in  their  most  private  affairs  of  some  far-off 
governor,  forced  in  every  recurring  emergency  to 
carry  appeals  for  justice  or  petitions  for  favour  to  an 
alien  power  separate  from  all  their  interests,  they 
urged  the  claim  that  right  should  be  done  to  the 
burghers  in  their  own  courts  and  by  then'  own  officers 
as  of  the  very  essence  of  any  true  liberty.  "  We 
are  the  citizens  of  our  lord  the  king,"  said  the  burghers 
of  Hereford,  "  and  have  the  custody  of  his  city  for  us 
and  for  his  heirs  and  for  our  heirs,  and  we  ought  not 
to  go  out  of  our  city  for  the  recovering  of  our  debts, 
for  divers  dangers  and  misfortunes  which  might 
happen  to  our  wives  and  children  ;  and  if  we  ought 
to  spend  our  goods  and  chattels  in  parts  afar  off,  by 
impleading  and  labouring  for  that,  by  that  means  and 
the  like  we  shall  be  impoverished ;  and  being  made 
poor,  we  shall  not  have  wherewith  to  keep  the  city, 
and  so  disinheritance  by  such  ways  would  easily  fall 
upon  our  children."1  And  as  the  burghers  claimed 
that  each  community  should  have  absolute  control 
over  its  members  for  the  peace  and  order  of  the 
commonwealth,  so  they  were  resolute  that  no  power- 
ful patron,  within  or  without  the  borough,  should  on 

<>f  .£10,  which  Margaret  the  Taneresse  of  Norwich  made  with  the 
same  lord  the  King,  he  granted  to  her  such  liberty  that  for  the 
whole  time  of  her  life  she  should  be  quit  from  all  his  tallages 
in  the  town  of  Norwich  ....  for  whatsoever  cause  they  may 
be  made.  And  he  commanded  that  they  vex  not  the  aforesaid 
Margaret  contrary  to  this  his  grant."  (Norwich  Documents* 
pr.  1884,  9.)  In  any  case  where  the  tallage  was  a  fixed  sum 
due  from  the  town  some  one  else  would  have  to  pay  Margaret's 
share.  '  Journ.  Arch.  Ass.  xxvii.  478. 


vi  THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT  221 

any  plea  whatever  venture  to  aid  or  "'  maintain"  a 
townsman  who  had  offended  against  the  municipal 
law,  "  because  by  such  maintainers  or  protectors  a 
common  contention  might  arise  amongst  us,  and 
horrible  manslaughter  be  committed  amongst  us,  and 
the  loss  of  the  liberty  or  freedom  of  the  city  to 
the  disinheritance  of  us  and  our  children ;  which  God 
forbid  that  in  our  days  by  the  defect  of  us,  should 
happen  or  fall  out  in  such  a  manner."  From  the 
first  they  were  forced  to  look  beyond  the  ques- 
tion of  mere  personal  regard,  seeing  how  deeply 
legal  forms  of  procedure  affected  their  common  life  a& 
a  separate  society,  and  they  had  their  grave  reasons 
of  state  for  insisting  that  the  older  forms  of  ad- 
ministering justice  in  their  courts  should  be  main- 
tained, and  trial  by  combat  rejected  and  abolished 
from  among  them,  "  by  reason  of  perpetual  enmity  of 
us  the  parents  and  of  our  children,  which  might  turn 
to  the  ruin  or  perdition  of  the  city  and  other 
innumerable  accident  dangers."  In  the  same  way 

1  Journ.  Arch.  Ass.  479.     Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  241-2.     Stat- 
ute of  Maintenance,   13  Richard  II.,  Stat.  3.     For  the  jealousy 
of  the  towns  as  to  any  inhabitant  relying  for  protection  on  a 
lord  outside,  see  p.  183,  note  2. 

2  Journ.  Arch.  Ass.  xxvii.  482.     For  a  duel  in  Leicester  in 
1201,  see  Select   Civil   Pleas,  Selden    Society,   p.   33.     Judicial 
combat  in  Fordwich  with  an  alien  had  to  take  place  in  the  middle 
of  the  river  Stour,  the  alien  standing  up  to  his  middle  in  the 
water,  while  the  Fordwich  man  apparently  fought  from  a  boat 
tied  to  the  quay,  with  an  instrument  called  an  "  ore,"  three  yards 
long.     (Hist.   MSS.    Com.  v.   442.)     In    1200   "the    citizens    of 
Lincoln  came  and  produced  the  king's  charter  which  witnesses  that 
none  of  them  need  plead  outside  the  city  walls  except  the  king's 
moneyers  and   servants,   and   that   they  need  not  tight  the  duel 


^22          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

tliev  were  driven  to  realize  the  necessity  of  having 

»/  »/  cj 

some  share  in  deciding  on  the  laws  by  which  they 
were  to  be  governed,  and  which  might  have  the 
gravest  results  to  their  little  state  ;  as,  for  example, 
when  the  people  of  Leicester  petitioned  for  a  charter 
from  Henry  the  Third  to  do  away  with  the  ancient 
usage  of  "  borough  English,"  and  grant  the  right  of 
inheritance  to  the  eldest  son,  since  owing  to  defective 
heirs  and  their  weakness,  the  town  was  falling  into 
ruin  and  dishonour.1 

because  of  any  appeal."  An  accused  man  answered  the  charges 
against  him  "  word  by  word  as  a  free  citizen  of  Lincoln,"  and 
"  according  to  the  franchise  of  the  town  "  waged  law  with  thirty- 
six  compurgators.  (Select  Pleas  of  the  Crown,  Selden  Society, 
p.  39.)  For  compurgation  in  Sandwich  in  1493,  Boys,  680. 

With  old  forms  of  trial  old  forms  of  punishment  were  allowed 
to  survive.  In  Sandwich,  if  a  man  failed  to  clear  himself  by 
compurgation  of  a  charge  of  homicide  or  theft  he  was  condemned 
to  be  buried  alive  in  a  place  called  the  Thiefdown  at  Sandown. 
(Ibid.  465.)  Felons  were  also  drowned  in  a  stream  called  "the 
Gestling";  but  in  1313  a  complaint  was  made  that  the  prior  of 
Christchurch  had  diverted  the  course  of  the  stream,  and  that 
criminals  could  not  be  executed  in  that  way  for  want  of  water.  (Ibid. 
664.)  At  Dover  and  Folkestone  a  thief  was  killed  by  being  thrown 
from  a  cliff,  and  at  Winchelsea  was  hanged  in  the  salt  marsh. 
(Lyon's  Dover,  i.  231.)  In  others  of  the  Cinque  Port  towns 
when  a  thief  was  taken  his  ear  was  nailed  to  a  pqst  or  cart- 
wheel and  a  knife  put  in  his  hand,  he  had  to  free  himself  by 
cutting  off  his  ear,  to  pay  a  fine,  and  to  forswear  the  town.  In 
1470,  12cZ.  was  paid  "for  nailing  of  Thomas  Norys  his  ear." 
(Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  525,  530.) 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  viii.  407.  Nottingham  retained  the  old 
usage  till  after  the  fourteenth  century ;  Records,  i.  175. 
Exeter  till  1581  ;  Freeman's  Exeter,  119.  The  question  may 
have  partly  turned  on  the  form  of  government  adopted  in  the 
town  and  the  work  required  of  the  common  assembly  in  which 
the  burghers  voted. 


vi  THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT  223 

All  these  privileges  and  exemptions  were  matters  of 
negociation  between  the  borough  and  the  king  or  the 
lord  of  the  manor  to  be  bought  for  money,  or  for 
political  support,  or  for  loans  in  time  of  need.1  The 
people  everywhere  simply  won  such  advantages  as 
time  and  opportunity  allowed,  and  secured  benefits 
which  were  measured  by  the  grace  of  the  king,  or  by 
the  price  they  could  afford  to  pay,  or  by  the  show  of 
resistance  they  could  make  to  their  lord.  Nor  was 
there  anything  startling  or  revolutionary  about  the  first 
beginnings  of  independent  municipal  life.  The  towrn 
assemblies  which  discussed  and  inaugurated  a  new  con- 
stitution transacted  their  business  with  a  complete- 
ness and  accuracy  of  methodical  routine  which  might 
kindle  the  sympathy  of  a  Town  Council  of  modern 
Birmingham.  In  the  organization  of  "  meetings  "  the 
mediaeval  Englishman  seems  to  have  had  nothing  to 
learn,  and  the  doings  of  the  people  of  Ipswich  when 
they  got  their  first  charter  from  King  John  in  1200 
carry  us  into  the  quiet  atmosphere  of  a  board-room 
where  shareholders  and  directors  of  some  solid  and  old- 
established  company  assemble  for  business  with  the 
decorum  and  punctuality  of  venerable  habit.2  The 
charter  granted  those  essential  privileges  which  were 

1  It  has  been  argued  (Gneist,  Constit.  Connnunale,  tr.  Hippert, 
i.  263;  v.  275)  that  the  State  created  local  government  in  the  towns 
as  a  method  of  developing  better  administration,  and  that  it  was 
therefore  only  accidentally  and  as  a  secondary  consequence  that  in- 
dependence and  local  liberties  came  in  the  wake  of  this  administra- 
tive system.     The  facts,  however,  of  their  story  make  it  perfectly 
clear  that  municipal  liberties  were  of  natural  growth,  and  sprang 
out  of  local  needs  rather  than  out  of  Court  statecraft. 

2  Gross,  i.  23;  ii.  115. 


224          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

recognized  by  all  boroughs  as  of  the  very  first  im- 
portance— the  right  henceforward  to  deal  in  financial 
matters  directly  with  the  Exchequer,  and  no  longer 
act  as  a  mere  fragment  of  the  shire  through  the  sheriff ; 
to  be  free  of  tolls  on  trade  throughout  the  kingdom, 
and  have  a  Guild  Merchant  with  all  its  commercial 
privileges  ;  to  carry  out  justice  according  to  the  ancient 
custom  of  the  borough ;  and  to  elect  each  year  from 
among  themselves  officers  to  rule  over  the  town,  who 
being  thus  appointed  by  common  consent  could  only 
be  removed  from  office  by  the  unanimous  counsel  of 
the  whole  people.     The  charter  was  given  on  May  25, 
and  in  the  following  month  a  general  assembly  of  the 
burghers  was  summoned.     At  this  meeting  they  first 
elected  the  chief  officers  for  the  year,  the  bailiffs  and 
coroners,  and  then  proceeded  to  decide  by  common 
counsel  that  a  body  of  twelve  "  Portmen  "  should  be  ap- 
pointed to  assist  them  ;  and  three  days  later  these  too 
were  formally  chosen  through  another  and  more  com- 
plicated system  of  election  by  a  select  body  of  citizens 
named  for  the  purpose.     Having  taken  an  oath  faith- 
fully to  govern  the  borough  and  maintain  its  liberties, 
and  justly  to  render  the  judgments  of  its  courts,  the 
new  officers  then  caused  all  the  townsmen  to  stretch 
forth  their  hands  towards  the  Book,  and  with  one  voice 
solemnly   swear  from  that  hour   to   obey  and  assist 
them  in  guarding  the  liberties  of  the  town.     Twelve 
clays  after  this  they  met  to  ordain  the  most  necessary 
rules  for  the  administration  of  the  town.      Two  months 
were  then  spent   in  drawing  up  "  Ordinances  "  which 
were  finally  solemnly  read  to  the  whole  people  assem- 
bled in  the  church-yard,  and  received  their  unanimous 


vi  THE  PROBLEM  OF  GOVERNMENT  225 

consent.  And  lastly  a  month  later,  on  October  12, 
the  organization  of  the  Merchant  Guild  for  the 
regulation  of  trade  was  completed  and  its  officers 
elected  ;  the  newly  made  Common  Seal1  was  inspected  ; 
and  the  community  ordered  that  a  record  of  all  their 
laws  and  free  customs  should  be  written  for  perpetual 
remembrance  in  a  roll  to  be  called  Domesday.  And 
thus  with  all  the  grave  ceremony  which  befitted  the 
dignity  of  a  new  republic,  Ipswich  started  on  its  in- 
dependent career  as  a  free  borough. 

1  The  seals  of  English  towns  of.  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth, 
and  fifteenth  centuries  were  of  finer  workmanship  than  any  in 
Europe.  They  generally  represented  a  fortress  or  walled  town, 
a  ship,  a  patron  saint,  or  heraldic  arms,  but  it  is  interesting  that 
in  no  case  is  the  figure  of  the  Mayor  used  to  typify  the  borough 
save  in  the  London  seal,  where  he  stands  among  the  corporation 
and  citizens.  Sometimes  a  bridge  is  given,  as  at  Barnstaple  ;  in 
two  or  three  cases  the  Guild  Hall. 


VOL.    I 


BATTLE    FOR    FREEDOM 

(1.)   Towns  on  Royal  Demesne 

So  auspicious  a  beginning  of  municipal  life  as  was 
granted  to  Ipswich  did  not  however  fall  as  a  matter 
of  course  to  the  lot  of  every  English  town,  nor  was 
political  liberty  by  any  means  an  inevitable  conse- 
quence of  favourable  commercial  conditions,  or  neces- 
sarily withheld  from  boroughs  in  a  humbler  way  of 
trade.  In  a  society  where  all  towns  alike  depended 
upon  some  lord  of  the  manor  who  owned  the  soil  and 
exercised  feudal  rio-hts  over  his  tenants,  that  which 

O  7 

mainly  determined  for  each  community  the  measure  of 
independence  it  should  win,  and  the  price  which  its 
people  should  pay  for  liberty,  was  the  form  of  lord- 
ship to  which  it  was  subject.  By  the  decisive 
accidents  of  position  and  tenure  the  fate  of  the  town 
was  fixed,  rather  than  by  the  merits  or  exertions  of 
the  burghers. 

First   among   the    boroughs    in    number   and   im- 


CH.  vii  TOWNS  ON  KOYAL  DEMESNE  227 

portance  were  those  in  "  ancient  demesne  " — that  is, 
boroughs  which  held  directly  from  the  king,  and  were 
therefore  reckoned  as  being  a  part  of  the  national 
property,  such  as  Canterbury,  York,  Winchester, 
Southampton,  Yarmouth,  Nottingham,  Gloucester, 
and  so  on.  A  second  group  was  formed  by  the 
towns  which  belonged  to  a  lay  noble,  like  Morpeth, 
Berkeley,  or  Leicester ;  or  were  held  by  him  as  a  spe- 
cial grant  from  the  king,  as  Barnstaple  or  Liverpool. 
Finally  there  were  the  towns  on  ecclesiastical  estates, 
whether  they  were  the  property  of  a  bishopric  like 
Lynn,  which  was  under  the  Bishop  of  Norwich,  Wells 
under  the  Bishop  of  Wells,  Romney  and  Hythe  under 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  ;  or  whether  they  owed 
suit  and  fealty  to  a  convent,  as  the  towns  of  Reading 
and  St.  Albans,  which  belonged  to  the  abbots  of  those 
monasteries  respectively,  Fordwich  to  St.  Augustine's 
at  Canterbury,  Weymouth  to  St.  Switlnm's  at  Win- 
chester.1 In  all  these  various  groups  the  towns 
were  equally  willing  to  relieve  their  feudal  superior, 
king  or  lord  or  bishop,  of  the  cares  of  government, 
and  the  only  question  was  how  far  the  king  would 
go  in  supporting  these  demands,  or  how  far  the  noble 
and  ecclesiastic  could  be  compelled  to  acquiesce  in  a 
re-distribution  of  feudal  jurisdiction  and  privileges  in 
favour  of  traders  and  "  mean  "  people. 

Happily  for  the  national  wealth  and  freedom  the 
great  majority  of  towns  in  England,  and  almost  all 
those  of  importance,  were  part  of  the  royal  demesne, 
and  the  king  was  lord  of  the  soil.  Fenced  in  by  privi- 

1  A  few  towns,  in  the  case  of  some  members  of  the  Cinque 
Ports,  depended  on  another  borough. 

Q  2 


228          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

leges  which  had  been  devised  to  protect  the  interest  of 
the  King,  and  which  they  gradually  found  means  to 
transform  into  institutions  for  the  protection  of 
their  own  interests,  the  burghers  on  ancient  demesne 
were  bound  into  one  fellowship  by  the  inheritance  of 
a  common  tradition  and  common  immunities  ; l  and 
regarding  their  towns  as  the  very  aristocracy  among 
the  boroughs,  enjoyed  a  self-conscious  dignity  such 
as  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe  might  feel  to- 
wards the  less  favoured  minor  States.  There  is  the 
ring  of  a  haughty  spirit  in  the  answer  sent  by 
the  men  of  Hereford  when  the  people  of  Cardiff 
begged  for  a  copy  of  their  "  customs"  to  help  them 
in  deciding  on  the  constitution  of  their  own  govern- 
ment. "  The  King's  citizens  of  Hereford,"  they  say, 
"  who  have  the  custody  of  his  city  (in  regard  that 
it  is  the  principal  city  of  all  the  market  towns 
from  the  sea  even  unto  the  bounds  of  the  Severn) 
ought  of  ancient  usage  to  deliver  their  laws  and 

0  O 

customs  to  such  towns  when  need  requires,  yet  in  this 
case  they  are  in  no  wise  bound  to  do  it,  because  they 
say  the}'  are  not  of  the  same  condition  ;  for  there  are 

1  For    the    position    of    tenants    on    ancient    demesne,    see 
Vinogradoff,    Villainage    in    England,   ch.    iii.       Mr.   Maitland 
(Select  Pleas  in   Manorial   Courts,  ii.  99,  <tc.)  gives  an  account 
of  King's  Ripton,  a  manor  on  ancient  demesne,  whose  tenants 
when  transferred  to  the  Abbey  of  Ramsey  were  always  fighting 
with  their  new  lords  as  to  the  services  due  from  their  holdings. 
"  The  privileged  nature  of  the  tenure  had  engendered  a  privileged 
race,  very  tenacious  of  its  land  and  of   its  customs  "  (p.  105). 
The  study  of  the  way  in  which  the  customs  of  ancient  demesne 
affected  the  later  constitution  of  the   boroughs  lies  outside  my 
subject,  and  is  therefore  merely  indicated. 


vii  TOWNS  ON  ROYAL  DEMESNE  229 

some  towns  which  hold  of  our  Lord  the  King  of 
England  and  his  heirs  without  any  mesne  lord  ;  and 
to  such  we  are  bound,  when  and  as  often  as  need  shall 
be,  to  certify  of  our  laws  and  customs,  chiefly  because 
we  hold  by  one  and  the  same  tenure  ;  and  nothing 
shall  be  taken  of  them  in  the  name  of  a  reward,  except 
only  by  our  common  town  clerk  for  the  writing  and 
his  pains  as  they  can  agree.  But  there  are  other 
market  towns  which  hold  of  divers  lords  of  the  king- 
dom wherein  are  both  natives  and  rustics  of  ancient 
time,  who  pay  to  their  lords  corporal  service  of  divers 
kinds,  with  other  services  which  are  not  used  among 
us,  and  who  may  be  expelled  out  of  those  towns  by 
their  lords,  and  may  not  inhabit  in  them  or  be  restored 
to  their  former  state,  but  by  the  common  law  of 
England.1  And  chiefly  those  and  others  that  hold  by 
such  foreign  services  in  such  towns  are  not  of  our 

o 

condition ;  neither  shall  they  have  our  laws  and 
customs  but  by  way  of  purchase,  to  be  performed  to 
our  Capital  Bailiff  as  they  can  agree  between  them, 
at  the  pleasure  and  to  the  benefit  of  the  city  afore- 
said." 2 

I.  Singular  advantages,  indeed,  fell  to  the  lot  of 
towns  thus  happily  situated  on  the  national  estate.  The 
King  was  a  Lord  of  the  Manor  too  remote  to  have 

1  Vinogradoff,  Villainage  in  England,  89.     Compare  the  claim 
of  Bristol  to  be  "  founded  and  grounded  upon  franchises,  liber- 
ties,  and  free  ancient  customs,   and   not   upon   common   law." 
(Ricart's  Kalendar,  2.)     For  its  liberties,  see  p.  24-5. 

2  As  a  matter  of  fact   the  various  towns   of  this  kind  which 
applied  to  Hereford  for  any  information  as  to  its  customs  on  any 
point  had  to  pay  one  hundred  shillings  for  the  answer  vouchsafed 
to  them.     (Journ.  Arch.  Ass.  xxvii.  470.) 


230         TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

opportunity  for  overmuch  meddling,  and  too  greatly 
occupied  with  affairs  of  state  to  concern  himself 
with  the  details  of  government  in  his  numerous 
boroughs.1  County  magnates  might  cling  passionately 
to  the  right  of  holding  local  courts  as  sources  of  power, 
and  yet  more  important  sources  of  wealth  ;  but  such 
rights  were  of  small  consequence  to  a  powerful 
sovereign,  who  as  supreme  head  of  the  law  could 
call  up  criminals  to  his  own  judgement  seat  from 
every  court  in  the  country.2  Confidence  of  supremacy 
made  him  careless  to  put  it  to  the  test  by  abrupt 
assertions  of  authority,  as  private  owners,  apprehensive 
and  uncertain,  might  be  tempted  to  do  ;  and  in  his 
indifference  to  small  uses  of  power  and  devices  for 
paltry  gain,  he  held  loosely  to  rights  that  brought 
much  trouble  and  little  profit.3  So  long  as  his  yearly 

1  There  was  constant  watchfulness   on  both  sides  as  to  their 
rights.     In  1400   the  bailiffs   of  Ipswich   granted  land  for  the 
building  of  a  mill  for  the  benefit  of   the  corporation ;  the  King's 
officers  declared  the  grant  to  have  been  made  without  the  royal 
licence,  and  the   mill  was  seized  for  the  King.     On  the  other 
hand,  when  the  sheriff  of   the   county  arrested  a   felon   in  the 
liberties  of   Ipswich  and  put  him  in  the  King's  jail,  the  bailiffs 
required  that  he    should    be    given   up   to    them.     (Hist.  MSS. 
Com.  ix.  231,  246.) 

2  That  is  on  the  plea  of  lack  of  justice  in  the  borough  court. 
In  1401,  when  the  citizens  of  Canterbury  were  summoned  by  the 
Crown  to  appear  at  Westminster  about  a  breach  of  the  statutes 
for  the  regulation  of  the  victualling  trades,  they  pleaded  that  by 
their  charter  they  could  not  be  called  to  answer  civil  suits  out  of 
their  own  city.     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  167.) 

3  In  1299  the  amercements  ordered  by  the  Leet  Court  of  Nor- 
wich amounted  to  £72  18s.  lOd  ;  the  amount  accounted  for  by  the 
collectors  was  £17  Os.   2d.     (Hudson's  Leet  Jurisd.  of  Norwich, 
Selden  Soc.  xl.)     Where  there  was  profit  to  be  made  the  King 


vii  TOWNS  ON  ROYAL  DEMESNE  231 

ferm  was  punctually  paid,1  he  was  ready  to  grant  to 
the  townsfolk  leave  to  gather  into  their  own  treasury 
the  petty  sums  collected  at  the  borough  or  manor 
courts,2  or  to  make  their  mayor  the  king's  escheator  ; 
and  while  he  thus  won  their  gratitude  and  friend- 
ship he  lost  nothing  by  his  generosity.  In  surrender- 
ing local  claims  for  a  fixed  payment,  he  not  only 
relieved  himself  of  the  charge  of  salaries  to  a  mul- 
titude of  minor  officials,  but  he  had  no  longer  to 
suffer  from  the  loss  of  fines  and  dues  and  forfeitures 

was,  however,  always  on  the  alert.  In  Piers  Ploughman, 
Passus  v.,  169,  he  complains  bitterly  of  the  lawyers;  "through 
your  law  I  believe  I  lose  my  escheats  !  " ;  and  it  was  often  late 
before  he  made  the  mayor  escheator.  In  1492  two  Scotch  priests 
were  arrested  in  Ipswich  for  treasonable  talk,  and  the  King  granted 
their  chattels  to  one  of  his  own  Serjeants.  The  bailiffs  sent  the 
Town  Clerk  to  Henry  to  represent  that  the  forfeited  goods  of  felons 
rightly  belonged  to  the  town  ;  to  which  the  King  answered  that 
he  would  not  for  a  thousand  pounds  infringe  in  the  least  degree 
their  charters,  but  that  the  community  had  really  no  right  to 
these  particular  chattels,  since  the  priests,  being  Scotch  and  not 
the  King's  subjects,  could  not  fairly  be  accused  of  treason,  and 
had  a  perfect  right  to  talk  as  they  chose.  On  this  plea  he  kept 
the  goods.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  247.) 

1  This  was  strictly  enforced,  and  the  town  charter  forfeited 
if  the  rent  fell  into  arrears.     (Madox,  139,  161-2.)     The  towns 
therefore  made  careful  provision  for  the  discharge   of  the  debt, 
sometimes  setting  apart  a  mill  or  some  valuable  property  for  its 
payment   (Madox,  Firma  Burgi,    251-2;    Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix. 
198-9  ;  Nott.  Rec.  i.  313),  or  assigning  certain  tolls  or  customs  ; 
(Shillingford's  Letters,  92) ;  or  collecting  it  as  rent  from  house  to 
house.     (Custumal  in  Hist.  Preston  Guild,  75.) 

2  When  the  ferm  of  Carlisle  was  raised  from  £60  to  £80  the 
citizens  were  granted,  as  a  help  towards  its  payment,  all  fines 
inflicted  by  the  King's  judges  within  their  walls.     (Hist.  MSS. 
Com.  ix.  198,  200.)     See  also  Norwich  Documents,  16,  17. 


232         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

which  were  nominally  levied  for  the  King,  but  which 
had  a  constant  tendency  to  find  their  way  into  the 
pockets  of  the  town  officers  or  the  tax-collectors  rather 
than  into  his  exchequer.  In  many  cases,  moreover,  he 
may  have  gained  considerably  by  the  price  which  he 
demanded  for  his  favours ;  and  the  royal  accounts 
possibly  give  a  very  inadequate  record  of  the  number 
of  special  gifts  of  money  and  yearly  annuities  paid  by 
boroughs  to  the  King  in  return  for  liberties  granted  to 
them.1 

II.  As  lord  of  the  manor,  therefore,  the  King  was  a 
liberal  master,  always  ready  to  arrange  a  compromise 
with  his  tenants  as  to  vexatious  feudal  claims.  But 
he  was  equally  ready  to  listen  to  their  prayers  for 
freedom  from  the  control  of  officers  of  the  Shire  and 
the  Hundred.  So  long  as  it  was  to  the  benefit  of  the 
central  authority  to  break  up  and  weaken  provincial 
governments,  to  curtail  the  powers  of  the  sheriff,  to 
confound  ambitious  designs  of  local  magnates,  and 
shatter  pretensions  on  the  part  of  the  nobles  which 
might  tend  to  strengthen  hereditary  enemies  of  the 
crown,  so  long  the  townspeople  might  count  on 
the  sovereign's  support  in  the  struggle  for  indepen- 
dence. In  questions  therefore  that  arose  as  to  rival 
jurisdictions,  in  claims  put  forward  by  a  borough 

1  Thus  the  Nottingham  men  paid  1 3s.  4cZ.  a  year  to  Henry  the 
Sixth,  at  least  from  1454,  for  liberties  granted  them.  There 
is  no  entry  of  this  in  the  King's  accounts,  and  the  only  evi- 
dence of  it  is  in  the  Nottingham  Records  (iii.  133).  The  loyal 
theory  of  Hereford  was  that  "  our  goods  and  chattels  are  to  be 
taken  and  taxed  at  his  pleasure,  saving  unto  ourselves  a  com- 
petent quantity  for  our  sustentation  and  tuition  of  our  city." 
(Journ.  Arch.  Ass.  xxvii.  471.) 


vii  TOWNS  ON  ROYAL  DEMESNE  233 

against  neighbouring  lords  for  rights  of  navigation 
or  pasturage  or  fishing,  in  all  disputes  which  were 
carried  in  the  last  resort  to  the  arbitration  of  the 
king,  his  sympathy,  especially  if  a  fitting  "  courtesy  " 
was  offered  by  the  burghers,  was  with  his  borough.1 
Powers  won  from  local  governments  or  from  feudal 
lords  were  divided  between  the  King  and  the  muni- 
cipality ;  and  under  shelter  of  the  royal  authority 
large  rights  of  local  self-government  were  rapidly 
gathered  into  the  burghers'  hands.  Functions  once 
exercised  by  the  bailiff  of  the  hundred  and  the 
sheriff  of  the  county  were  handed  over  to  the  mayor  ; 
he  collected  the  fee-ferm,  held  the  view  of  frank- 
pledge,  levied  taxes,2  mustered  the  men-at-arms,  and 
presided  over  civil  and  criminal  courts. 

III.  Nor  was  there  any  serious  difficulty  as  to  the 
exercise  of  the  sovereign  rights  of  the  crown.  To  the 
King  it  mattered  little  whether  he  sent  a  special 
deputy  direct  from  the  court,  or  whether  he  dele- 
gated powers  to  the  mayor,  and  used  him  as  an 
official  immediately  responsible  to  the  crown  ;  while 
on  the  other  hand  such  a  change  meant  much 
present  solace  to  the  townsfolk.  A  compromise 
was  therefore  easily  brought  about  between  the 
monarch  and  the  people.  The  mayor  was  invariably 
appointed  as  the  King's  Clerk  of  the  Market,  the 

1  Nott.  Rec.  i.  225,  227,  413,  421. 

2  The  agreement  made  in  the  fourteenth  century  which  fixed 
the  tenths  and  fifteenths  for  the  towns  at  a  permanent  fixed  sum, 
made  it  easy  for  the  King  to  give  over  to  local  officials    the 
levying  of  this  tax  without  fear  of  injury  to  the    Exchequer. 
(Stubbs,  ii.  599,  600.) 


234         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

Measurer  and  Ganger  at  the  King's  Standard,  the 
Manager  of  the  King's  Assize  ;  he  became  the  re- 
presentative of  the  sovereign  in  the  most  important 
charges  of  administration,  as  one  of  the  King's 
Justices1  in  the  town,  as  Admiral,2  as  Mayor  of 
the  Staple.  Administrative  changes  such  as  these 
left  the  power  of  the  sovereign  untouched  and  cost 
him  nothing  ;  while  on  the  other  hand  the  central 
government  was  by  this  means  provided  with  a 
ready-made  staff  of  trained  officials, — a  staff  which 
the  King  could  not  possibly  have  created,3  nor  paid 
out  of  his  empty  exchequer  even  if  he  had  been 
able  to  create  it — but  which  had  become  absolutely 
essential  for  carrying  out  the  supervision  of  local 

1   Blomefielcl,  iii.  137. 

-  The  Admiral  and  his  deputy  had  jurisdiction  over  everything 
done  on  the  sea  and  the  great  rivers  up  to  the  first  bridge.  (13 
Richard  II.  St.  1,  cap.  5  ;  15  Richard  II.,  cap.  3  ;  Blomefield, 
iii.  103;  Davies'  Southampton,  239-40.)  In  1487  the  com- 
monalty of  Ipswich  by  a  covenant  with  the  King  bound  them- 
selves to  take  surety  of  every  owner,  master,  or  purser  of  every 
English  ship  to  twice  the  value  of  the  ship,  that  the  mariners 
should  keep  the  peace  on  the  sea  ;  that  if  the  surety  by  any 
means  became  less  than  twice  the  value  of  ship,  tackle, 
and  victuals,  new  security  should  be  taken  ;  and  that  the  town 
should  strive  to  arrest  every  robber  and  spoiler  in  the  sea  or  the 
streams  thereof.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  259-60.)  In  1463  a 
charter  was  given  to  the  corporation  of  York,  constituting  them 
the  King's  justiciaries  for  overlooking  and  preserving  the  main 
rivers  of  Yorkshire.  For  the  expenses  and  difficulties  which  this 
involved,  see  Davies'  York,  59-63,  82,  &c. 

3  As  an  illustration  of  his  difficulties,  see  the  statute  allowing 
sheriffs  and  escheators  to  remain  for  four  years  in  office,  because 
owing  to  pestilence  and  wars  there  was  not  a  sufficiency  of  persons 
to  occupy  these  offices.  (9  Henry  V.  St.  1,  cap.  5.) 


vii  TOWNS  ON  ROYAL  DEMESNE  235 

affairs  at  a  time  when  such  supervision  was  growing 
more  important  every  day,  from  the  point  of  view 
both  of  the  King  and  of  the  people.  The  towns  on 
their  side,  relieved  by  the  new  system  from  miseries l 
under  which  they  had  suffered,  readily  forgot  dis- 
tinctions between  laws  made  by  them  and  made 
for  them,  so  long  as  these  were  administered  by 
officers  of  whom  they  were  allowed  the  election  and 
control.2 

IV.  Finally  if  the  towns  suffered  from  the  offi- 
cers of  the  royal  household,  a  remedy  was  easily 
granted  them.  The  sovereign  found  no  personal 

1  In  the  lack  of  officials  to  carry  out  the  regulations  for  the 
control  of  trade  a  number  of  private  people  got  royal  letters 
appointing  them  surveyors  and  correctors  of  victuallers  in  various 
cities  and  boroughs,  and  freely  used  their  privileges  for  extortion 
and  oppression,  and  the  taking  of  heavy  fines  and  ransoms ;  their 
patents  were  gradually  withdrawn;    and  in  1472  an  Act  was 
passed  that  all  such  letters  and  patents  should  be  void,  and  that 
the  duty  of  searching  and  surveying  victuals  should  rest  wholly 
with  the  mayor  or  bailiff.     (12  Edward  IV.  cap.  8.) 

2  In  this  matter  the  King  was  not  allowed  to  interfere.     In 
1489  there  was  a  dispute  in  Leicester  between  the  Town  Council 
and  the  Commons  about  the  election  of  a  Mayor.     The  matter 
was  referred  to  the  King,  who  issued  a  precept  under  the  seal  of 
the  Duchy  of    Lancaster,  showing  that  it  was  as  Lord  of   the 
Manor  and  not  as  King  that  he  interfered.     He  set  aside  both 
candidates  and  reappointed  the  last  Mayor.     The  next  year  the 
question  was  settled  by  Act  of  Parliament.      (Thomson,  Mun. 
Hist.,  84.)     For  authority  exercised  by  Parliament  see  Norwich 
(Doc.   Stanley  v.  Mayor,  &c.  30.)     When   the   citizens   applied 
in     1378    to    the    King   and    Council    for    a    renewal  of    their 
ancient  liberty  that   no  stranger  should  have  power  to  buy  or 
sell  by  retail,  they  were  answered  that  it  would  not  be  valid 
"  without  Parliament "  ;   they  therefore   pray  for  a  grant   by 
charter. 


236          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

inconvenience  in  transferring  the  duties  of  these 
officers  to  the  governors  of  the  boroughs  themselves  ; 
and  the  mayor  or  bailiff  became  the  King's  Steward, 
and  Marshal  of  the  King's  Household  in  the 
borough.  In  short,  as  the  towns  advanced  to 
independence,  all  manner  of  powers  and  responsi- 
bilities were  heaped  together  on  their  chief  officer, 
with  no  clear  discrimination  between  his  various 
and  oddly  mingled  functions.  Men  did  not  pause 
to  ask  which  of  his  masters  the  mayor  at  any  given 
moment  was  serving,  whether  he  was  acting  as  head 
of  the  city  government  to  carry  out  the  burghers' 
will,  or  as  the  officer  appointed  by  the  sovereign 
to  execute  his  laws ; l  and  nice  questions  as  to 
the  exact  division  of  authority  which  had  really 
taken  place  were  so  manifestly  irrelevant  in  presence 
of  the  harmonious  concentration  of  all  power  in  & 
single  hand,  that  jealousies  and  suspicions  on  both 
sides  were  allayed,  to  the  great  furtherance  of 
peace  and  concord.  To  the  mediaeval  poet  who 
drew  a  picture  of  Love  as  "  the  leader  of  our  Lord's 
folk  in  Heaven,"  standing  as  a  "  mean "  or  me- 
diator of  peace,  there  wras  one  obvious  comparison — 

1  See  Hudson's  Leet  Jur.  in  Norwich,  Selclen  Soc.  xxvii. 
xc.  "  For  he  doth  represent  to  us  the  body  of  our  King." 
(Journ.  Arch.  Ass.  xxvii.  462.)  See  the  proclamation  of  the 
London  Mayor  :  "  We  do  command,  on  behalf  of  our  Lord  the 
King,  that  no  dyer  or  weaver  shall  be  so  daring,"  &c.  ("  Memorials 
of  London,"  p.  309.)  An  illustration  of  how  the  King's  law  and 
the  town  law  ran  side  by  side  may  be  seen  in  the  fines  for  the 
breach  of  certain  rules,  as,  for  instance,  the  rule  against  liveries, 
which  had  to  be  paid  both  to  the  King  and  to  the  town. 
(English  Guilds,  388-9.) 


vii  TOWNS  ON  ROYAL  DEMESNE  237 

even  "  as  the  mayor  is  between  the  King  and  the 
commons."  l 

The  history  of  the  royal  boroughs,  therefore,  so 
far  as  their  relations  with  the  King  are  concerned, 
reduces  itself  into  a  long  list  of  favours  asked  and 
given.  Frequent  troubles  of  state  no  doubt  stimu- 
lated the  generosity  of  sovereigns ;  and  times  of 
political  disturbance  and  revolution  proved  occasions 
when  the  towns  rose  into  independence  through 
the  necessities  of  kings,  who  confirmed  old  franchises 
and  granted  new  ones,  and  "  right  largely  made 
charters  thereof,  to  the  intent  to  have  the  more  good- 
will and  love  in  their  land."  2  The  civil  wars  under 
Henry  the  Second,3  the  money  difficulties  of  Eichard 
and  John,  the  troubled  minority  of  Henry  the 
Third,  the  disorders  under  Edward  the  Second, 
the  commercial  policy  of  Edward  the  Third,  the 
political  insecurity  of  Henry  the  Fourth  after  his 
seizure  of  the  throne,  the  financial  needs  of  Henry 
the  Fifth,  the  tumults  and  fears  of  the  reign  of 
Henry  the  Sixth,  the  anxiety  of  Edward  the  Fourth 
to  conciliate  the  kingdom, — all  these  were  so  many 
heaven-sent  opportunities  for  the  burghers  to  win 
new  instalments  of  local  liberty ;  while  the  two 
periods  of  reaction  brought  about  by  the  fear  of  the 
Peasant  Revolt  under  Richard  the  Second,  and  the 
nervous  apprehensions  of  Richard  the  Third,  were 
themselves  made  use  of  by  the  governing  class  in 
the  boroughs  to  confirm  and  tighten  their  authority. 

1  Piers  Ploughman,  Passus  ii.  156,  157. 

2  Warkworth's  Chronicle,  2.  3  See  Gross,  ii.  245. 


238          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

So  monotonous  indeed  is  the  record  of  the  burghers 
on  the  royal  demesne,  all  moving  together  along 
the  same  well-beaten  road  to  independence,  winning 
the  same  privileges,  even  winning  them  at  the  same 
time,1  that  a  brief  statement  of  liberties  secured  by 
any  single  city  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  general 
history  of  all. 

Up  to  the  time  of  Henry  the  Second  Norwich  en- 
joyed certain  liberties  and  privileges,  but  its  citizens 
were  practically  feudal  servants  of  the  King,  who 
appointed  their  governors,  took  the  profits  of  their 
courts,  and  looked  on  the  city  as  a  private  possession 
of  his  own.  Their  true  freedom  began  with  the  charter 
granted  them  in  1194  by  Richard  the  First.2  They 
were  to  have  the  customs  of  London ;  the  burgesses 
might  not  be  summoned  to  answer  any  plea  outside 
the  city ;  they  were  henceforth  to  elect  their  own 
Provost,  "  such  as  may  be  fitting  to  us  and  to  them  ; " 
and  they  were  allowed  to  hold  their  city  at  a  ferm  rent 
of  £108  a  year,  which  they  themselves,  instead  of  the 
sheriff,  should  collect  and  pay  to  the  Exchequer.  For 
the  confirmation  of  their  rights,  "  and  for  having 
the  city  in  their  hand,"  the  Norwich  people  paid 
200  marks.3  From  this  time  the  provost  took 

1  The  instances  of  similar  grants  made  to  various  towns  at 
almost  the  same  date  are  too  numerous  to  give,  but  they  would 
form  a  striking  list. 

2  Charter  of  Lincoln   the   same    year  ;    that   of    Winchester, 
1190.     (Stubb's  Charters,  257-8).     Nottingham  and  Northamp- 
ton in  1200  (ibid.  301-3).     The  system  of  government  adopted  at 
Norwich  was  followed  or  imitated  a  little  later  by  the  neighbour- 
ing towns  of  Yarmouth  and  Colchester. 

3  Norwich  Doc.   Stanley  v.   Mayor,   «tc.   p.    3.     In   the  great 


vii  TOWNS  ON  ROYAL  DEMESNE  239 

the  place  of  the  officer  formerly  appointed  by  the 
King,  presided  over  the  Borough  Court  in  the  Tol- 
booth  and  possibly  held  the  view  of  frankpledge,  and 
paid  the  fines  of  the  courts  into  the  city  treasury. 
The  sheriff  of  the  county,  however,  still  held  a  higher 
court,  the  Curia  Comitatus,  within  the  enclosure  of 
the  castle,  where  he  exercised  criminal  jurisdiction, 
and  jurors  made  the  presentments  ordered  by  the 
assize  of  Clarendon.1 

But  this  power  of  the  sheriff  only  lingered  on 
for  a  few  years.  In  1223  a  new  arrangement  was 
made  between  the  citizens  and  Henry  the  Third. 
Norwich  consisted  of  four  distinct  divisions  which 
had  been  naturally  formed  out  of  the  four  hamlets 
created  by  the  first  settlers  and  which  had  by  de- 
grees become  united  into  a  single  town  : — Conesford, 
where  the  earliest  comers  gathered  round  the  ford 

majority  of  cases  this  grant  was  made  once  for  all ;  but  occasion- 
ally it  was  renewed  from  time  to  time.  Thus  Henry  the  Sixth 
in  1437  gave  the  mayor  and  burgesses  of  Bristol  a  lease  of 
the  town  and  its  profits  for  a  term  of  twenty  years.  In  1446  he 
granted  a  new  lease  for  sixty  years.  In  1461  Edward  the  Fourth 
renewed  the  lease,  not  for  a  term  of  years,  but  for  ever.  (Seyer's 
Charters  of  Bristol,  105.)  The  ferm  was  granted  in  the 
same  way  for  a  term  of  years  in  the  case  of  Dunwich,  a  royal 
town,  where  it  was  let  out  to  the  highest  bidder.  Here,  however, 
the  collection  of  rent  was  peculiarly  uncertain  from  special  cir- 
cumstances (Madox,  235-8,  241);  and  in  1325  Dunwich,  ruined 
by  the  filling  up  of  its  port,  prayed  to  have  the  town  taken  into 
the  King's  hand  and  a  guardian  appointed.  (Rot.  Parl.  i.  426.) 
For  the  inconvenience  of  this  letting  out  to  the  highest  bidder, 
see  Madox,  251. 

1  Hudson,  Municipal  Organisation  in  Norwich,  20  ;  Leet  Jur. 
in  Norwich,  Selden  Society,  xvi.  Ixxii. 


240          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

over  the  river,  protected  by  the  stream  on  one  side, 
and  on  the  other  by  the  mound  on  which  the  castle 
stood  in  later  days ;  the  Westivick,  whose  name 
shews  its  later  foundation,  and  which  lay  on  the 
further  side  of  the  fortifications,  within  the  bend 
of  the  river ;  the  Magna  Crofta  or  big  field  of  the 
castle,  lying  below  the  entrenchments  midway  be- 
tween Conesford  and  Westwick,  which  was  made  at 
the  Conquest  into  a  new  ward,  Mancroft  Ward ;  and 
the  Ward-over-the-  Water  on  the  further  bank  of  the 
river,  somewhat  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  town.1 
For  the  government  of  these  "  leets,"  as  the  divisions 
came  to  be  called,  it  was  decided  in  1223  that  the 
burghers  should  elect  four  bailiffs,  one  for  each  dis- 
trict.2 There  was  no  longer  to  be  any  provost,  since 
the  bailiffs  were  to  take  his  place  in  joint  government 
of  the  town,  and  were  further  to  take  over  the  crimi- 
nal jurisdiction  hitherto  exercised  by  the  sheriff  in 
his  court  at  the  castle.  From  this  time  therefore 
most  of  the  social,  commercial,  and  criminal  affairs  of 
the  city  lay  in  the  burghers'  own  hands. 

«/  J  O 

The  four  bailiffs,  however,  had  still  no  control  over 
the  castle  and  its  entrenchments,  nor  over  a  wide 
reach  of  land  that  lay  along  the  river,  stretching  past 
Conesford  and  Mancroft  and  Westwick — land  owned 
by  the  prior  and  convent ;  nor  had  they  any  authority 
over  the  cathedral,  the  priory,  and  the  bishop's 
palace  that  lay  within  Westwick,  nor  over  property 
owned  by  them  or  by  other  ecclesiastical  bodies  which 

1  Hudson's  Xotes  about  Norwich,  Norfolk  Arch.  vol.  xii.  p.  25. 

2  In  1288  the  four  bailiffs   presided   over  the  courts  of  these 
leets.     (Hudson,  Municipal  Organisation,  16,  21.) 


vii  TOWNS  OX  ROYAL  DEMESNE  241 

penetrated  into  the  heart  of  the  city ;  while  on  the 
other  hand  tenants  of  castle  and  prior  and  bishop 
were  all  making  their  profit  out  of  the  city  trade,  and 
enjoying  its  peace  and  protection.  Therefore  the  next 
claim  of  the  burghers  necessarily  was  that  the  King 
should  give  to  the  municipality  authority  to  tax  for 
the  common  expenses  all  inhabitants  alike,  under 
whatever  lord  they  held;  and  in  1229  they  obtained 
<i  royal  grant  that  all  "  who  should  partake  of  the 
liberties  which  we  have  granted  to  the  said  citizens 
of  Norwich  ....  shall  be  taxed  and  give  aid  as 
the  said  citizens ; "  and  that  "  if  anyone  has  with- 
drawn from  their  customs  and  scots,  he  shall  return 
to  their  society  and  custom,  and  follow  their  scot, 
so  that  no  one  shall  be  quit  therefrom." l  There 
was  no  trifling  with  the  municipal  authority  iu  this 
matter ;  in  1236  and  1237  when  the  tenants  of  castle 
and  prior  attempted  to  resist  the  claim  on  their 
moneys,  the  sheriff  was  ordered  to  summon  them 
before  him  to  show  by  what  right  or  warrant 
they  claimed  acquittance  from  payments  to  the  city 
treasury;  and  again  in  1276,  when  the  tenants  of 
the  castle  refused  to  pay  their  share  of  taxes,  the 
case  was  brought  before  the  barons  of  the  exchequer, 
and  an  order  came  from  Westminster  that  the  sheriff 
wras  forthwith  to  levy  the  sum  due  and  hand  it  over 
to  the  city.2 

Henry  the  Third  granted  many  other  favours  "  to 
our  beloved  citizens  of  Norwich,"  feeling  perhaps  the 

1  Norwich  Doc.,  Stanley  v.  Mayor,  itc.,  p.  5. 

2  Ibid.  6,  8,  10.     Blomefield,  iii.  46,  62. 

VOL.    I  R 


242          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

advantage  of  their  friendship  amid  the  increasing 
troubles  of  his  reign ;  and  the  burghers  of  Norwich 
certainly,  like  those  of  Winchester,  took  sides  with 
him  in  the  war  against  Simon  de  Montfort.1  In  1253- 
they  had  been  allowed  to  enclose  then-  city  with  a 
ditch.2  In  1255  (twenty  years  before  a  general  law 
was  passed  to  this  effect  for  all  Englishmen),  they 
were  freed  from  arrest  for  debt  of  which  they  were- 
not  sureties  or  principal  debtors.  And  in  1256  Henry 
granted  a  charter  which  ordered  that  the  "  citizens- 
shall  answer  at  our  exchequer  by  their  own  hands  for 
all  debts  and  demands  ....  and  that  no  sheriff  or 
other  bailiff  of  ours  shall  henceforth  enter  the  city 
aforesaid  to  make  distresses  for  any  debts  ;  "  which 
decreed  further  that  all  merchants  who  shared  in  the 
Norwich  liberties  and  merchandises  were  to  pay  the 
city  taxes  "  wheresoever  they  shall  make  their  resi- 
dences ;  "  and  which  ordained  lastly  that  "  no  guild 
shall  henceforth  be  held  in  the  aforesaid  city  to  the- 
injury  of  the  said  city." 3  The  sheriff  was  thus 
finally  shut  out  from  all  land  or  houses  held  by  the 
citizens ;  and  absent  merchants  were  subjected  to 
their  lot  and  scot. 

From  Edward  the  First  the  citizens  in  1305  obtained 
the  right  to  hold  the  Leet  of  Newgate  in  Norwich, 
which  the  King  had  "lately  recovered  against  the 
Prior  of  Holy  Trinity  " ;  and  further  paid  a  fine  downr 
and  promised  to  pay  £10  yearly  into  the  Exchequer 

1  The   convent   sided  with  De  Montfort.      For   the  state   of 
affairs  in  the  city,  see  Blomefield,  iii.  52,  Arc. 

2  Blomefield,  iii.  49. 

3  Norwich  Doc..  Stanley  v.  Mayor,  <tc..  7. 


vii  TOWNS  ON  ROYAL  DEMESNE  243 

for  ever,  for  a  charter  granting  that  they  should 
not  be  impleaded  outside  the  city ;  that  they  should 
not  be  convicted  by  any  foreigners  but  only  by  their 
co-citizens,  save  in  matters  touching  the  King  or  the 
whole  commonalty ;  that  the  bailiffs  should  have 
power  to  assess  tallages  and  other  reasonable  aids  "  by 
the  assent  of  the  whole  of  the  commonalty,  or  of  the 
greater  part  of  the  same  "  for  the  protection  and  advan- 
tage of  the  city,  and  to  make  "reasonable  distresses " 
for  the  levying  of  these  tallages  as  was  done  in  other 
cities  ;  and  that  they  should  hold  the  Leet  of  Newgate 
which  the  Crown  had  "  lately  recovered  against  the 
Prior  of  Holy  Trinity."  l  Further  the  burghers  re- 
membered a  trouble  into  which  they  had  fallen  in 
the  case  of  a  thief  who  had  stolen  some  cloth  and 
brought  much  sorrow  on  the  city ;  for  having  fled 
to  the  church  of  St.  George  he  finally  escaped  out 
of  it  though  the  door  was  guarded  by  four  parishes, 
who  were  all  fined  for  their  lax  vigilance  ;  then  being 
caught  and  condemned  by  the  bailiffs  and  commonalty 
he  was  condemned  to  be  hung,  but  at  his  burial  found 
to  be  still  alive,  and  the  man  who  had  cut  him  down 
was  thrown  into  prison  ;  and  lastly  the  bailiffs  were 
accused  of  illegal  action  in  hanging  him  "  without  any 
man's  suit  and  without  capture  in  the  act,"  and  of 
"  taking  up  thieves  and  malefactors  for  trespasses 
done  outside  the  city  and  executing  judgement  on 
them  in  the  city,"  and  the  city  liberties  had  been 
seized  into  the  King's  hands,  and  a  royal  officer  set  ta 
rule  over  them.2  So  the  burghers  in  1307  presented 

1  Norwich  Doc.,  Stanley  v.  Mayor,  &c.,  16,  17. 

2  Ibid.  10-12. 

R   '2 


244         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

a  petition  that  the  right  of  infang  theof  and  outfang 
theof,  which  they  had  used  at  all  times  "whereof 
memory  runneth  not,"  might  now  be  definitely  in- 
serted in  their  charter.  Further,  since  the  sheriff 
"  by  malice  "  still  found  means  on  one  excuse  or  an- 
other to  arrest  a  citizen  from  time  to  time — and 
this  though  the  Norwich  people  had  the  return  of 
all  manner  of  writs l  so  that  neither  the  sheriff  nor 
any  foreign  bailiff  had  any  right  to  meddle  with 
them — they  required  of  the  King  that  at  their  de- 
mand every  citizen  thus  seized  should  be  delivered 
over  to  them  out  of  the  hands  of  the  alien.  Likewise 
they  prayed  that  so  long  as  a  burgher  lived  in  the  city 
lie  should  never  be  required  to  attend  any  foreign 
court  whatever  by  reason  of  any  foreign  tenure  he 
might  hold ;  and  that  no  foreign  tenement  should  give 
the  right  to  sheriffs  or  foreign  bailiff  to  summon  him 
to  be  in  juries  or  inquests  outside  the  city.  Lastly, 
as  a  protection  against  any  danger  of  forfeiting  their 
franchise  by  failure  to  pay  the  ferm  rent,  they  asked 
permission  for  the  corporation  to  hold  in  perpetual 
possession  certain  lands  and  houses  the  profits  of  which 
might  be  set  apart  for  the  rent.2 

Under  Edward  the  Third  the  sheriff  of  the  county 

was    deprived     of    his    last    plea    for    interference 

within  the  city  walls.     Up  to  this  time  he  had  still 

'  collected  rents  and  taxes  and  done    justice  for  the 

tenants  of  the  Castle  Fee  ;    and  the  ditches  of   the 

1  This  meant  that  it  was  the  town  bailiff  who  was  to  return 
the  certificate  of  what  he  had  done  in  execution  of  a  writ 
addressed  to  him,  instead  of  this  being  returned,  as  formerly,  by 
the  sheriff.  -  Xorwich  Documents,  16.  18. 


vir  TOWNS  ON  ROYAL  DEMESNE  245 

Castle  and  the  Fee,  thus  freed  from  city  rule,  had 
been  made  a  sort  of  refuge  for  felons  and  male- 
factors flying  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  city  officers. 
All  this,  however,  was  in  1346  handed  over  to  the 
bailiffs,  and  the  sheriff  was  in  no  wise  to  interfere.1 
Moreover,  in  consideration  of  the  cost  to  which  the 
citizens  had  gone  in  enclosing  the  city,  they  were 
set  free  for  ever  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  clerk 
of  the  market  of  the  King's  household.2  Norwich 
was  further  given  its  own  Admiral,  who  sailed  about  in 
the  "  admiral's  barge,"  and  who  held  admiralty  courts 
and  administered  its  law.3  In  1331  it  became  a 
Staple  town,  and  its  mayor  was  made  a  mayor  of  the 
Staple,  with  a  salary  of  £20  and  a  seal  given  by  the 
king.4 

Meanwhile  the  Norwich  people  had  been  gradually 
perfecting  their  own  internal  system  of  govern- 
ment— a  system  which  will  be  described  in  a 
later  chapter — and  in  the  difficulties  of  Henry  the 
Fourth  they  found  opportunity  to  complete  their 
work.  A  sum  of  £1,000  given  to  the  King, 
besides  heavy  fines  paid  in  bribes  on  all  sides, 
secured  in  1403  a  charter  which  finally  guaranteed 
to  them  the  constitution  of  their  choice.5  Norwich 
was  made  into  a  county  of  itself.  A  mayor  was 
appointed,  who  was  given  supreme  rights  of  juris- 

1  Norwich  Documents,  25.  2  Ibid.  26. 

3  Blomefield's  Hist,  of  Norfolk,  iii.  103. 

4  Ibid.   iii.  81,   94-5.     In  1393  the  corporation  was  granted 
shops  and  houses  held  of  the  King  and  worth  £W  yearly,  the 
profits  of  which  were  to  be  spent  on  repairing  the  walls  and  towers. 
For  this  licence  they  had  to  pay  the   King  .£100.      Norwich 
Documents,  32.  5  Ibid.  33-37. 


246          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

diction  in  the  city,  and  received  from  the  King  him- 
self a  sword  which  was  to  be  carried  before  him  with 
the  point  erect,  along  with  the  gold  or  silver  maces 
borne  by  the  serjeants-at-mace.  The  four  bailiffs 
were  replaced  by  two  sheriffs,  also  elected  by  the  bur- 
gesses, who  were  charged  with  matters  concerning  the 
interests  of  the  crown  wThich  had  formerly  been  the 
business  of  the  bailiffs,  and  were  responsible  for  the 
yearly  rent  of  the  city.  The  mayor  was  appointed 
the  King's  escheator,  and  thus  the  last  office  which 
had  been  reserved  in  alien  hands  was  given  over  to 
the  municipality.  Finally  in  token  of  the  consum- 
mation of  the  municipal  hopes  the  old  seal  of  the 
bailiffs  was  abolished  to  make  way  for  a  new  city  seal. 
Norwich  was  but  one  among  a  number  of 
boroughs  whose  inhabitants  quietly  and  steadily 
gathered  to  themselves  the  liberties  that  made  them 
free,  for  in  the  fellowship  of  towns  holding  of  the 
King;  under  a  uniform  tenure  throughout  the  "  ancient 

~  o 

demesne,"  the  list  of  privileges  granted  to  any  one 
became  the  model  for  its  neighbours  near  and  far.1 
With  orderly  progression,  unbroken  by  any  of  the. 
violent  and  dramatic  incidents  that  indicate  a  time 
of  conflict,  all  the  bigger  towns  won  by  gradual  in- 
stalments complete  local  independence.  Such  changes 
of  method  as  we  observe  are  simply  changes  made 
necessary  by  new  national  legislation,  such  as  the 
form  of  incorporation  required  after  the  Statute 
of  Mortmain,2  or  the  right  to  elect  Justices  of  the 

1  Gross,  i.  240-267. 

2  Report  on  Municipal  Corporations,  1835,  pp.  16-17.     Gross, 
i.  94,  note  1. 


vii  TOWNS  ON  ROYAL  DEMESNE  247 

Peace  when  one  power  after  another  had  been  given 
to  these  officers  by  law.1  We  do  not  distinguish 
seasons  of  plentiful  harvest  and  periods  barren  of  all 
growth ;  in  one  century  as  in  another  Kings  stooped 
to  accept  the  "  courtesies "  offered,  and  granted  the 
favours  solicited.  Nor  do  we  find  records  of  ad- 
vantages hastily  given  and  timidly  withdrawn ;  or, 
until  the  reign  of  Eichard  the  Third,2  is  there 
any  suggestion  of  anxiety  on  the  part  of  Kings 
to  check  or  limit  the  free  action  of  the  boroughs.3 
CJp  to  that  time  rulers  of  the  state  seem  to  have 
had  no  apprehension  of  peril  to  public  order,  of 
jeopardy  to  trading  interests,  of  injury  to  the  ad- 

1  This   change   was    evident   from   the   time  of    Richard    the 
Second,  when  the  powers  of  the  Justices  were  rapidly  enlarged. 
See  Statutes,  12  Richard  II.  cap.  10 ;    13  Richard  II.,  1,  cap.  8  ; 
13  Richard  II.,  1,  cap.  13  ;    13  Henry  IV.  cap.  7  ;  2  Henry  V. 
cap.  4  ;  2  Henry  V.,  1,  cap.  8  ;  2  Henry  VI.  cap.  12  ;  2  Henry  VI. 
cap.  14  ;  2  Henry  VI.  cap.  18  ;  6  Henry  VI.  cap.  3 ;   18  Henry 
VI.  cap.  11. 

2  Southampton,  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  3,  p.  104.     Cases  of  inter- 
ference  occur   in   the   unpublished    records  of   Coventry.      For 
Romney  see  Lyon's  Dover,  313.     In  1489  there  was  some  such 
trouble  in  Leicester  (Thompson,  Mun.  Hist.,  84).     And  in  1512 
there  is  another  instance  in  Nottingham  (Records,  iii.  341-2). 
From  the  time  of  Richard  the  Third  there  seems  evidence  of  the 
growth  of  a  new  anxiety  in  the  central  government  about  the 
democratic  movement  in  the  boroughs,  and  a  determination  to 
reserve  power  in  the  hands  of  a  small  corporation.     An  earlier 
instance  may   perhaps   be    found    in    the  Exeter  quarrel    from 
1477  to  1482  (English  Guilds,  305,  &c.);  and  in  York  in  1482 
(Davies,  122-4). 

3  There  were  many  cases  in  which  a  town's  privileges  were 
forfeited,  whether  for  arrears  of  rent  (Madox,  139,  161-2)  or 
for  other  causes  (154-5,  157).     The  franchises  of  Nottingham 


248         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

ministration  of  justice,  of  possible  usurpations  by 
the  municipalities  which  might  bring  them  into  col- 
lision with  the  ordered  forces  of  the  world ;  and  for 
three  hundred  years  statesmen  freely  allowed  the 
growth  of  municipal  ambition,  and  gave  full  scope 
for  the  developement  of  all  the  various  systems  of 
local  self-government.  The  full  importance  of  these 
facts  only  becomes  clear  when  we  turn  to  the  history 
of  the  towns  that  were  under  subjection  to  other  lords 

were  twice  forfeited  for  some  unknown  cause — in  1283  for  three 
years  (Records,  i.  56),  and  in  1330  for  a  short  time.  (Ibid.  102.) 
In  the  same  year  Edward  the  First  seized  the  franchises  of 
Derby  because  of  exactions  of  the  Merchant  Guild,  but  restored 
them  on  payment  of  a  fine.  (Gross,  ii.  53.)  For  the  case  of 
Sandwich  (Boys,  661,  676).  Ipswich  charter  withdrawn,  1285; 
regranted,  1291 .  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  230,  239,  243.)  Chester  in 
1409.  (Hemingway.'s  Chester,  i.  137.)  The  liberties  of  Carlisle 
were  forfeited  for  a  short  time  for  some  irregularity  in  the  town 
courts  in  the  thirteenth  century.  (Gross,  ii.  38.)  Southampton 
lost  its  freedom  in  1276  and  1285,  and  again  in  the  next 
century  for  letting  the  French  into  the  town.  (Davies'  South- 
ampton, 33,  35,  79.)  Norwich  suffered  several  times  ;  for  its 
attack  on  the  Priory  in  1272;  for  an  accusation  of  having 
exceeded  its  powers  in  punishing  crime  in  1286  ;  for  riots  about 
the  election  of  mayor  in  1437  ;  and  for  Gladman's  insurrection 
in  1443.  (Stanley  v.  Mayor,  «fcc.,  Norwich  Doc.,  9-12.  Pro- 
ceedings, Privy  Council,  v.  45.  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  i.  103.)  In 
these  cases  a  royal  ofiicer  was  appointed  to  rule  the  town ;  and 
the  complaint  of  Scarborough,  when  Edward  the  Second  in  1324 
deprived  it  of  the  right  of  direct  payment  to  the  Exchequer, 
shows  how  a  town  suffered  when  its  ferm  was  leased  out.  (Rot. 
Parl.  i.  423.)  The  loss  of  liberty  was  always  temporary,  lasting 
from  a  few  months  to  five  or  six  years,  and  had  no  political 
significance  as  in  France,  where  it  formed  part  of  a  settled  policy 
and  had  results  which  to  the  English  mind  seem  of  peculiar 
importance  in  the  history  of  constitutional  development. 


vii  TOWNS  ON  ROYAL  DEMESNE  249 

than  the  nation  itself;  and  compare  the  peaceful 
negotiations  by  which  matters  were  arranged  be- 
tween the  royal  boroughs  and  the  State,  with  the 
violence  of  feeling  aroused  when  the  misgivings 
and  alarms  of  private  owners  were  brought  into 
the  controversy. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

BATTLE  FOR  FREEDOM 
(2)  Toivns  on  Feudal  Estates 

Ox  the  King's  lands,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
interests  of  the  monarch  never  came  into  collision 
with  the  interests  of  his  burghers,  and  the  towns- 
folk found  an  easy  way  to  liberty.  From  time  to 
time  they  presented  a  petition  for  freedom,  brought 
their  gifts  to  win  the  sovereign's  favour,  and  joyfully 
carried  back  to  their  fellow  citizens  a  new  charter 
of  municipal  privileges.  But  the  condition  of  the 
towns  that  belonged  to  noble  or  baron  was  doubly 
depressed  from  the  standpoint  of  their  happier  neigh- 
bours. Of  secondary  importance  alike  in  numbers, 
in  wealth,  or  in  influence,  as  compared  to  those  on 
royal  demesne,  they  for  the  most  part  never  emerged 
into  any  real  consequence ;  while  their  lord  had 
every  reason  to  oppose  the  growth  of  independence 
in  his  boroughs,  and  lacked  nothing  for  its  complete 
suppression  but  the  requisite  power.  New  franchises 
were  extorted  from  his  weakness  rather  than  won 


CH.  viii  TOWNS  ON  FEUDAL  ESTATES  251 

from  his  good  will,  and  where  acquiescence  in  the 
town's  liberties  was  not  irresistibly  forced  on  him 
his  opposition  was  dogged  and  persevering. 

The  dispute  was  none  the  less  intense  because 
under  the  conditions  of  English  life  the  controversy 
between  the  town  and  the  feudal  lord  was  limited 
within  a  very  narrow  field ;  for  the  burghers  saw  well 
how  the  lord's  claims  to  supremacy  might  per- 
manently fetter  an  active  community  of  traders, 
and  on  this  point  townspeople  fought  with  a  per- 
tinacity determined  by  the  conviction  that  all 
their  hopes  of  prosperity  depended  on  victory.  To 
manufacturers  and  merchants  the  rule  of  an  alien 
governor  wras  fatal ;  trade  died  away  before  vexatious 
checks  and  arbitrary  imposts,  and  enterprising 
burghers  hastened  to  forsake  the  town  where  pros- 
perity was  stunted  and  liberty  uncertain,  and  take 
up  citizenship  in  a  more  thriving  borough.  Success 
and  emancipation  went  hand  in  hand ;  for  the 
effects  of  a  maimed  and  imperfect  freedom  were  al- 
ways disastrous  and  far-reaching,  and  there  is  not  a 
single  instance  of  an  English  town  which  remained 
in  a  state  of  dependence  and  which  was  at  the 
same  time  prosperous  in  trade. 

One  or  two  instances  will  be  enough  to  show  the 
extent  and  character  of  the  traders'  claim  for  "  liber- 
ties." The  burghers  of  Totnes,  who  had  been  fined 
for  having  a  Guild  by  Henry  the  Second,  had  no 
sooner  succeeded  in  securing  its  authorisation  from 
John  than  they  at  once  made  it  a  weapon  of  offence, 
and  a  formidable  weapon  too  with  its  roll  of  more 
than  three  hundred  members,  against  their  lord's 


252         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUEY      CHAP. 

control  of  the  town  market  and  of  the  shopkeepers. 
The  Guild  claimed  the  right  to  admit  non-residents  to 
their  company,  so  that  these  might  freely  trade  without 
paying  any  tribute  to  the  lord  for  one  year,  after  that 
giving  six  pence  annually ;  and  pretended  to  have 
authority  to  test  weights  and  measures  without  orders 
from  the  lord's  bailiff ;  to  hold  the  assize  of  bread  and 
alo  and  receive  fines ;  and  apparently  to  deal  out 
justice  for  petty  offences.  These  usurpations  of  his 
rights  were  discussed  between  the  lord  and  his  tenants 
with  riots  and  contentions,  in  which  the  lord  proved 
victorious  in  1304,  forcing  the  burghers  to  submit 
on  every  point  in  which  the  Guild  tried  to  bring  in 
customs  which  lay  beyond  the  ancient  rights  of  the 
community.  They  were  forbidden  to  admit  to  the 
Guild  anyone  who  had  not  a  house  in  the  town,  and 
non-residents  had  to  take  oaths  before  his  bailiff  to 
pay  a  yearly  fine  to  the  lord.  No  trial  of  weights  and 
measures  could  take  place  till  orders  had  been  issued 
to  the  Seneschal  of  the  Guild  by  the  lord's  bailiff; 
when  the  trial  came  on  bailiff  and  town  provost  sat 
beside  him  in  the  Guildhall  to  hear  the  charges,  and 
even  then  all  false  or  suspected  measures  were  to  be 
kept  by  the  provost  till  the  lord's  next  court.  On 
the  other  hand  the  bailiff  might  hold  a  trial  of  mea- 
sures whenever  he  judged  that  he  could  do  the  business 
better.  So  also  the  assize  of  bread  was  given  to  the 
lord's  bailiff  sitting  with  the  provost  of  the  town  ;  all 
suspected  bread  and  weights  were  to  be  seized  by 
him,  the  offenders  to  be  fined  in  the  lord's  court,  all 
punishments  by  tumbril  or  pillory  inflicted  by  his 
orders,  and  all  proceeds  of  fines  given  over  to  him. 


vin  TOWNS  ON  FEUDAL  ESTATES  253 

Lastly  when  small  thefts  and  riots  were  to  be  judged 
the  bailiff  sat  by  the  town  officers  and  as  many 
burgesses  as  chose  to  come,  and  took  his  share  in  the 
proceedings — though  occasionally  in  his  absence  the 
town  officers  might  act  by  common  consent  of  the 
community.1 

Such  was  the  comparative  helplessness  of  a  com- 
munity which,  with  all  its  tenacity  of  purpose,  could 
neither  urge  custom  nor  tradition  on  its  side  in 
pleading  for  independent  rights.  Iii  the  borough  of 
Barnstaple,  on  the  other  hand,  which  had  been 
granted  by  the  King  2  to  Sir  John  Cornwall  and  his 
wife  the  Countess  of  Huntingdon,  we  have  an  instance 
of  the  immense  advantages  possessed  by  a  town  which 
though  now  in  private  ownership,  inherited  the 
tradition  of  privilege  which  its  people  had  won  as 
tenants  of  ancient  demesne.3  In  1423  the  Mayor, 

1  Gross,  ii.  235-243. 

2  Occasionally   a   borough  was  granted  to  a  great   noble  or 
court  favourite  ;  but  more  commonly  as  time  went  on  the  grant 
merely  meant  giving  a  charge  on  the  rent  of  the  town.     Thus 
before    1339    Preston   had   been   granted   at   various   times   to 
neighbouring  lords.     In   1361   John  of  Gaunt  held  the  manor, 
but  long  before  this  the  rights  of  the  lord  were  so  reduced  that 
they  are  practically  never  mentioned  in  the  history  of  the  town. 
(Hewitson's  History  of  Preston,  7-8.)    For  the  troubles  to  which 
the  nobles'  claims  to  rent  might  lead,  see  Davies'  Southampton, 
112.     Edward  the  Fourth  granted  the  ferm  of  Bristol  to  the 
Queen  for  her  life.  The  treasurer  of  the  King's  chamber  declared 
it  had  been  assigned  to  him  in  payment  of  a  debt  and  brought 
an  action  for  it  against  the  Bristol  sheriff.     Bristol  proved  the 
money  had  been  paid  to  the  Queen  and  gained  the  case,  1465. 
(Madox,  227-8.) 

3  In  1273  Henry  de  Tracy  held  the  borough  from  the  King  in 
chief  at  a  ferm  of  about  £5  14s.  Id,      There  were  36  tenants 


254          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

Aldermen,  and  capital  burgesses  drew  up  a  list  of  bye- 
laws  for  the  good  government  of  the  borough,  which 
apparently  stirred  the  apprehensions  of  its  lords. 
For  a  few  years  later,  reviving  ancient  traditions  of 
feudal  authority  in  a  suit  against  the  borough,  they 
complained  that  the  mayor  and  burgesses  had  of  their 
own  authority  admitted  as  "  Burgesses  of  the  Wynde" 
"foreign"  merchants  and  victuallers  who  merely 
visited  the  town ;  and  had  turned  to  their  own  use 
the  fines  from  denizens  pertaining  to  their  lord  ;  that 
they  had  taken  the  correction  of  bread  and  ale,  and 
unlawfully  seized  fines  and  tolls  ;  that  they  would  not 
suffer  his  officers  to  take  custom  after  ancient  usage 
from  the  people  of  Wales  for  their  merchandise ;  and 
that  they  even  seized  fines  belonging  to  him  for  heaps 
of  rubbish  in  the  streets.  Moreover  they  did  not  render 
the  suit  and  service  due  to  the  lord's  court  from  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  borough,  for  without  his 
leave  they  themselves  held  a  court  every  Monday, 
and  instead  of  coming  to  every  court  of  the  lord's 
steward  they  did  not  come  oftener  than  twice  a  year ; 

whose  rent  amounted  to  23s.  8d.  and  some  tenants  in  a  suburb  who 
paid  an  uncertain  rent,  but  generally  about  6s.  8d.  A  market  was 
held  every  Friday  which  yielded  in  tolls  to  the  lord  about  £3  a 
year,  and  a  yearly  fair  gave  10s.  Fines,  reliefs,  <fcc.,  came  to 
about  13s.  M.  a  year.  The  wealth  of  the  town  increased  after 
the  building  of  the  "Long  Bridge"  in  1280  over  "the  great 
hugy,  mighty,  perylous,  and  dreadful  water  named  Taw,"  and 
the  increase  of  the  cloth  trade  about  1321.  Towards  the  close 
of  the  fourteenth  century  the  legacies  and  accounts  show  that  the 
burghers  were  laying  up  considerable  wealth  and  doing  a  thriving 
trade.  Hence  probably  the  dispute  as  to  the  claim  to  profits. 
Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  206-213.  See  also  case  of  Bridgewater, 
ibid.  iii.  310-14. 


viii  TOWNS  ON  FEUDAL  ESTATES  255 

nor  would  they  suffer  the  lord's  officers  to  make 
attachments  in  the  borough  at  the  Nativity  of  Our 
Mother  after  the  ancient  custom.  In  other  words  the 
townsfolk,  just  like  the  people  of  Totnes  two  hundred 
years  before,  were  bent  on  regulating  their  trade  and 
spending  the  money  collected  in  their  courts  and 
markets ;  but  they  were  happier  than  they  of  Totnes 
in  being  able  to  claim  that  all  these  so-called  usurpa- 
tions were  ancient  rights  of  the  burgesses,  by  virtue, 
as  they  said,  of  a  charter  granted  by  King  Atlielstan 
500  years  before.  As  this  charter  however  had 
unluckily  been  "  casualiter  arnissa,"  the  town  had 
to  fall  back  on  the  verdict  of  an  inquisition  held 
about  1300  as  to  the  usages  and  franchises  to  which 
it  was  entitled,  and  the  payments  which  were  due 
by  the  mayor  and  commonalty  in  place  of  old  feudal 
services.  Here  the  Barnstaple  men  held  their  own 
successfully,  and  in  1445  they  secured  a  charter 
from  Henry  the  Sixth,  "  for  accommodation  of  the 
burgesses  in  doing  their  business  quietly,"  which  con- 
firmed to  them  the  fullest  rights  of  self-government,1 
The  struggle  of  the  boroughs  with  their  feudal  lords 
was  however  a  matter  of  little  significance  in  England, 
where  since  the  Conquest  feudalism  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  noble  had  so  unsatisfactory  a  record. 
Fallen  from  the  high  estate  of  his  brethren  on  the 
Continent,  despoiled  of  his  might  by  one  strong  king- 
after  another,  he  saw  himself  condemned  to  play  in 
England  a  comparatively  modest  -  part,  and  from  his 

1  They  even  claimed  the  right  of  infang  theof  and  outfang  theof , 
and  to  be  impleaded  only  in  their  own  court.  Hist.  MSS.  Com. 
ix.  206. 


256          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

less  exalted  plane  was  even  constrained  to  assume  in 
his  relations  to  burghers  and  traders  a  conciliatory, 
almost  at  times  a  deprecating  tone,  not  because 
he  was  lacking  in  "  a  high  and  pompous  mind,"  but 
simply  because  his  fortunes  had  sunk  low.  Hence 
the  conflict  in  England  was  of  a  very  different 
character  from  the  conflict  abroad.  Fashions  of  care- 
ful ceremonial  indeed  long  preserved  the  traditional 
sense  of  impassable  barriers  set  between  the  dignity 
of  the  great  whose  daily  needs  were  supplied  by  the 
labour  of  others,  and  the  low  estate  of  those  who 
had  to  depend  upon  their  own  toil.  "  "Whensoever 
any  nobleman  or  peer  of  the  realm  passed  through 
any  parish,  all  the  bells  were  accustomed  to  be  rung 
in  honour  of  his  person,  and  to  give  notice  of  the  pas- 
sage of  such  eminency ;  and  when  their  letters  were 
upon  any  occasion  read  in  any  assemblies,  the  com- 
mons present  would  move  their  bonnets  in  token  of 
reverence  to  their  names  and  persons."  Burghers  and 
journeymen  with  an  irreverent  laugh  at  men  "  ever- 
more strutting  who  no  store  keep,"1  gathered  to  see 
the  noble  go  by  "  in  his  robe  of  scarlet  twelve  yards 
wide,  with  pendent  sleeves  down  on  the  ground, 
and  the  furrur  therein  set  amounting  unto  £20  or 
better,"  while  a  train  of  followers  crowded  after 
him  anxiously  holding  up  with  both  hands  out  of 
the  filth  of  the  mediaeval  streets  the  wide  sleeves 
made  to  "  slide  on  earth"  by  their  sides,  and  eagerly 
watching  lest  the  ladies  should  forget  to  admire  "  the 
plaits  behind  ; "  and  the  busy  mockers  of  the  market- 

1  Rich.    Eedeless,    eel.    Skeat.    Early    English    Text    Society, 
Text  C,  Pass.  iii.   177,  etc. 


vni  TOWNS  ON  FEUDAL  ESTATES  257 

place  guessed  that  tailors  and  skinners  must  soon 
carry  their  cloths  and  skins  out  into  the  fields  if 
they  would  find  space  enough  to  cut  out  robes  like 
these.1  But  the  fine  garments  and  leisurely  state  of 
the  great  folk,  the  hollow  ornaments  of  a  vanquished 
feudalism,  were  matters  of  little  significance ;  the 
forces  of  the  future  lay  rather  with  the  crowd  of 
workers  to  right  and  left — with  the  men  who  watched 
the  brave  procession  sweep  by.  and  then  gathered  in 
their  Common  House  to  decree  that  any  burgher  who 
put  on  the  livery  of  a  lord,  or  accepted  his  main- 
tenance and  protection,  should  be  blotted  out  of  the 
book  of  burgesses,  and  driven  from  their  market- 
place and  assembly  hall,  and  "  that  he  come  not 
among  them  in  their  congregations."  : 

For  the  moment,  indeed,  the  noble  class  was  as  it 
were  thrown  aside  by  the  strong  current  of  the 
national  life,  nor  could  the  handful  of  families  that 
held  half  the  soil  of  England  and  the  lesser  baronage 
who  followed  in  their  train  be  recovered  of  their 
impotence,  of  their  impoverishment  of  intellect  and 
decay  of  force,  even  by  the  greatest  landholder  and 
the  most  typical  member  of  their  body,  Warwick  the 

1  Book  of  Precedence,  E.  E.  Text  Society,  105-108.  Langland 
in  Richard  the  Redeless  describes  the  noble  who  "  keepeth  no 
coin  that  cometh  to  their  hands,  but  changeth  it  for  chains  that 
in  Cheap  hangeth,  and  setteth  all  their  silver  in  samites  and 
horns ; "  and 

"  That  hangeth  on  his  hips  more  than  he  winneth 
And  doubteth  no  debt  so  dukes  them  praise." 

Richard  the  Redeless,  Passus  iii.  137-40,  147-8. 
-  Journ.  Arch.  Ass.  xxvii.  467.     Nott.  Rec.  ii.  425. 

VOL.    I  S 


258          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP 

Kingmaker.  Sated  with  possessions,  forced  into  a 
position  of  leadership  mainly  by  the  imposing  list  of 
his  great  relations  and  the  surprising  number  of  his 
manors — a  patriot  who  consecrated  his  services  to  the 
cause  of  a  faction  and  the  unrestrained  domination  of 
a  family  group  of  blood  relations — a  general  who  never 
got  beyond  an  already  antiquated  system  of  warfare, 
devoid  according  to  public  rumour  of  personal  courage, 
deserted  in  a  crisis  by  the  one  organised  military  force 
in  the  public  service — a  commander  with  all  the 
ready  instincts  of  the  common  pirate — a  statesman 
made  after  an  old  ancestral  pattern,  who  had 
learned  his  politics  a  couple  of  centuries  before  his- 
time,  and  to  the  last  remained  absolutely  blind  to  the 
great  movements  of  his  own  day — an  administrator 
who  never  failed  at  a  critical  moment  to  put  in 
jeopardy  the  most  important  national  interests — an 
ao-itator  restless  for  revolution,  but  whose  in- 

o  ' 

fiuence  in  the   national  counsels   was  practically  of 
no   account  when  there  was  a  pause  in  mere  fighting 
—it  is  thus  that  Warwick  stands  before  us,  a  con- 
summate representative  of  his  demoralized  class. 

The  conditions  under  which  the  great  landowners, 
were  living  at  this  time  were  indeed  singularly  unfav- 
ourable. With  the  new  trade  they  had  comparatively 
little  to  do,1  and  the  noble,  with  his  throng  of  depend- 

1  The  landowner  of  the  fifteenth  century  was  usually  a  mere 
landlord  subsisting  on  his  rents  and  not  interested  in  the  produce 
of  the  soil  except  as  a  consumer.  He  was  only  occasionally  a 
trader.  (Rogers'  Agriculture  and  Prices,  iv.  2  ;  see  Berkeleys,  i. 
365-6  ;  ii.  23  ;  Paston,  i.,  lxxxviii-ix.,  416,  430,  431,  454  ;  ii. 
70,  106  ;  iii.  430  ;  Hist,  MSS.  Com.  viii.  263  :  iv.  1,  464.)  The 


viii  TOWNS  ON  FEUDAL  ESTATES  25» 

ents  and  his  show  of  state,  was  really  living  from  hand 
to  mouth  on  the  harvests  from  his  fields  and  the 
plunder  he  got  in  war.1  After  the  fashion  of  the  time 
the  treasure  of  the  family  was  hoarded  up  in  his  great 
oak  chests ;  splendid  robes,  cloth  of  gold,  figured 
satins,  Eastern  damasks  and  Sicilian  silks,  velvets  and 
Flemish  cloths,  tapestries  and  fine  linen,  were  heaped 
together  with  rich  furs  of  marten  and  beaver.  Golden 
chains  and  collars  of  "  the  old  fashion"  and  "the 
new,"  rings  and  brooches  adorned  with  precious  stones, 
girdles  of  gold  or  silver  gilt  by  famous  foreign  makers, 
were  stored  away  in  his  strong  boxes,  or  in  the 
safe  rooms  of  monasteries,  along  with  ewers  and 
goblets  and  basins  of  gold  and  silver,  pounced  and 
embossed  "  with  great  large  enamels  "  or  covered  with 
silver  of  "  Paris  touch."  2  But  the  owner  of  all  this 
unproductive  treasure  scarcely  knew  where  to  turn 
for  a  little  ready  money.  The  produce  of  the  estate 
sufficed  for  the  needs  of  the  household,  and  if  the  lord 
was  called  away  on  the  king's  service,  or  had  to 

really  important  classes  were  the  new  proprietors  who  rented 
land  for  trading  purposes. 

1  See  Fastolf,  Paston  Letters,  i.  187-8. 

2  Treasures  were  apparently  stored  in   different  quarters  for 
greater  security.     See  Fastolf 's  stores  at  Caistor.    (Paston  Letters, 
i.  416,  473-475;  S.  Benet's,  468,  508;  S.  Paul's,  London,  493; 
Bermondsey,  474 ;  White  Friars,  Norwich,  ii.  56.)    The  religious 
houses  had  their  reward  in  the  form  of  benefactions  for  which 
masses  were  sung  for  the  donor.     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iv.  i.  461.) 
In  the  Paston  house  there  was  stored  away  over  16,000  ounces  of 
silver  plate,  nearly  900  yards  of  cloth,  about  300  yards  of  linen, 
and  coats  and  hats  without  number.     See  also  Hist.  MSS.  Com. 
vii.  537  ;  viii.  93  ;  Berkeleys,  ii.  212.     Plumpton  Corresp.  10-11, 
13.  37. 

s  2 


260          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

attend  Parliament,  a  supply  of  oats  was  carried  for 
the  horses  "  to  save  the  expenses  of  his  purse";  and 
an  army  of  servants  rode  backwards  and  forwards 
continually  to  fetch  provisions  from  fields  and  ponds 
and  salting  tubs  at  home,  so  that  he  should  never  be 
driven  to  buy  for  money  from  the  baker  or  at  the 
market.1  The  crowd  of  dependents  who  swelled  his 
train,  easily  content  to  win  an  idle  subsistence,  a  share 
of  booty  in  time  of  war,  "  maintenance  "  in  the  law 
courts,  and  protection  from  all  enemies,  either 
received  no  pay  at  all,  or  accepted  the  most  trifling 
sums — a  few  shillings  a  year  when  they  could  get  it, 
with  a  "livery"  supplied  like  their  food  from  the 
estate.2  For  money  which  was  scarce  everywhere  was 
nowhere  so  scarce  as  in  the  houses  of  the  landed 
proprietors,  who  amid  their  extravagant  display 
found  one  thing  always  lacking — a  few  pounds  to 
pay  an  old  debt  or  buy  a  new  coat.  Sir  John  Pastou, 
the  owner  of  broad  estates  in  Norfolk,  was  forced 
more  than  once  to  pawn  his  "  gown  of  velvet  and 
other  gear  "  in  London  to  get  a  few  marks ;  when  it 
occurred  to  him  to  raise  money  on  his  father's 

1  Berkeley s,  i.  167. 

2  John  of  Gaunt  retained  Rankyn  d' Ypres  to  dwell  with  him  for 
peace  and  Avar  for  the  term  of  his  life,  granting  him  board  and 
twenty -five  marks  a  year  from  the  ferm  of   Liverpool,  in  time  of 
peace.    (Picton's  Municipal  Records  of  Liverpool,  i.  16.)    For  the 
management  of  a  great  house  with  the  giving  out  of  wool  for 
spinning  and  weaving  and  accounts  audited  by  a  master  clothier, 
see  Berkeleys,  i.  167  ;  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  330  ;  Denton's  Lectures, 
293 ;  Paston,  ii.  354-5  ;  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  x.  4,  p.  297.  Often  they 
supplied  their  own  livery.     (Brinklow's  Complaynt,  45  ;  Paston, 
ii.  139.) 


•viir  TOWNS  ON  FEUDAL  ESTATES  261 

funeral  pall,  he  found  his  mother  had  been  before- 
hand with  him,  and  had  already  put  it  in  pawn. 
During  an  unwonted  visit  to  Westminster  in  1449, 
the  poor  Lady  of  Berkeley  wrote  anxiously  to  her 
husband,  one  of  the  greatest  landowners  in  England, 
"At  the  reverence  of  God  send  money,  or  else  I 
must  lay  my  horse  to  pledge  and  come  home  on 
my  feet";  and  he  managed  to  raise  £15  to  meet 
her  needs  by  pawning  the  mass  book,  chalices,  and 
chasubles  of  his  chapel.1  So  also  the  Plump  tons,  in 
Yorkshire,  were  in  perpetual  money  difficulties ;  ser- 
vants were  unpaid,  bills  not  met,  debts  of  £2  10s. 
and  £4  put  off  from  term  to  term,  and  at  last  a 
friend  who  had  gone  surety  for  a  debt  of  £100 
to  a  London  merchant  was  arrested.  "Madam,"  a 
poor  tradesman  writes  to  Lady  Plumpton,  "  ye  know 
well  I  have  no  living  but  my  buying  and  selling, 
and,  Madam,  I  pray  you  send  me  my  money." 
One  of  the  family  tried  in  vain  to  get  a  friend  to 
buy  him  some  black  velvet  for  a  gown.  "  I  pray 
you  herein  blame  my  non-power,  but  not  my  will," 
the  friend  answers  from  London,  "  for  in  faith  I 
might  not  do  it  but  if  I  should  run  in  papers  of 
London,  which  I  never  did  yet,  so  I  have  lived 
poorly  thereafter."  2  When  times  grew  pressing  the 
country  families  borrowed  freely  from  their  neigh- 
bours and  relations ;  no  one,  even  the  sister  of  the 
Kingmaker,  felt  any  hesitation  in  pleading  poverty 

1  Lives  of  the  Berkeleys,  ii.  63. 

2  Plumpton's  Correspondence,  13,  20-1,  41,  71,  72,  97,  99, 148, 
194,  206,  1S7,  198-9.     The  abbot  of  Fountains  had  to  write  a 
severe  letter  to  order  that  a  wine-seller  in  Ripon  shall  be  paid 


262          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

as  a  reason  for  being  off  a  bargain  or  asking  for  a 
loan  ; l  and  those  who  were  in  better  case  lent  readily 
in  the  hope  of  finding  a  like  help  themselves  in 
case  of  difficulty.2  Year  by  year  debts  accumulated, 
till  the  owner's  death  allowed  the  creditors  to  open 
his  coffers  and  scatter  his  treasured  stores,  when 
the  "  array,  plate,  and  stuff  of  the  household 
and  of  the  chapel "  scarcely  sufficed  to  meet  the 
legacies  and  bills,  the  charities  deferred,  and  the 
masses  required  for  his  soul's  safety.3 

There  were  indeed  instances  in  which  the  growing 
poverty  of  the  nobles  opened  an  easy  way  for  the 
emancipation  of  the  towns,  since  it  was  sometimes 
possible,  under  the  pressure  of  poverty  or  bankruptcy, 
to  convince  the  lord  of  a  borough,  even  though  he 
had  but  such  a  measure  of  good  wit  in  his  head 

"  As  them  shouldest  mete  of  a  mist  from  morn  till  even,"  * 

that  the  balance  of  profit  lay  on  the  side  of  freedom. 
For  to  some  extent  the  difficulties  of  the  landowners 
arose  from  the  fact  that  on  their  estates  the  commuta- 

for  a  tun  of  wine.  (Ibid.  62.)  For  courtiers  who  "paid  on  their 
pawns  when  their  pence  lacked,"  Richard  the  Redeless,  Pass.  i. 
53-4 ;  Paston  Letters,  ii.  333-5,  349-50 ;  iii.  99. 

"  Butt  drapers  and  eke  skynners  in  the  town 
For  such  folk  han  a  special  orison 
That  florisshed  is  with  curses  here  and  there 
And  ay  shall  till  they  be  payd  of  their  gere." 

Book  of  Precedence,  Early  English  Text  Society,  107. 

1  Paston  Letters,  iii.  326,  194,  219,  358. 

2  Ibid.  iii.  6-7,  20,  23,  24,  35,  46,  49,  114-5,  219,  258. 

3  Lives  of  the  Berkeleys,  ii.,  v. ;  Brinklow's  Complaynt,  40. 

4  Richard  the  Redeless,  Pass.  iii.  172. 


vin  TOWNS  OX  FEUDAL  ESTATES  263 

tion  for  feudal  services,  or  dues  to  be  rendered  for  the 
holding  of  land,  had  been  settled  in  early  times  when 
money  was  scarce  and  demands  for  profit  modest, 
and  these  charges  remained  fixed  when  prices  were 
rising  and  when  the  need  of  ready  money  was  keenly 
felt.1  But  while  the  lord  could  look  for  no  increase 
from  his  lands,  a  new  source  of  profit  had  been  opened 
.to  him  in  the  boroughs  on  his  estate.  He  could 
find  money  surely  and  easily  by  leasing  out  rights 
of  trade,  collection  of  tolls,  and  other  privileges  to 
the  townspeople.  In  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth 
century  the  mayor  and  burgesses  of  Berkeley  obtained 
from  their  lord  freedom  from  all  kinds  of  toll  which 
he  either  demanded  or  might  demand  of  them;2 
and  in  the  fourteenth  century  he  rented  to  them  the 
tolls  of  the  wharfage  and  of  the  market,  and  received 
larger  profits  from  this  transaction  than  he  gained 
from  all  the  rent  of  the  borough.3 

o 

1  Berkeleys,  i.  159. 

2  Lives  of  the  Berkeleys,  i.  130.    A  charter  given  by  Baldwin  of 
Redvers  to  Plympton,  1285,  grants  the  same  rights  as  the  citizens 
of  Exeter  had  from  the  King,  except  that  Baldwin's  serfs,  if 
they  lived  in  the  borough,  might  not  be  granted  its  liberties 
without  his  leave.     (Madox,  Firma  Burgi,  42.)     The  King  could 
grant  a  number  of  privileges  which  were  beyond  the  power  of 
any    other   lord — such   as    freedom    from   tolls   throughout   the 
kingdom,  exemption  from  the  sheriff's  jurisdiction,  freedom  from 
interference  of  royal  officers,  and  so  on  ;  and  the  matter  of  tolls 
was  so  important  that  towns  on  private  estates  were  practically 
obliged  to  get  a  royal  charter   as  well  as  a  charter  from  their 
lord.      Compare  the  charters  given   in   Stubbs'  Charters,   105  ; 
and  Gross,  ii,  136 ;  with  royal  charters  such  as  those  in  Stubbs' 
Charters,  103;  and  Nott.  Rec.,  i.  1.     See  also  Hist.  MSS.  Com. 
ix.  273.  3  Berkeley*,  i.  341. 


264         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

The  weakest  corporation  moreover  had  a  persist- 
ence and  continuity  of  life  which  gave  it  incalculable 
advantages  in  the  conflict  with  individuals  subject 
to  all  the  chances  and  changes  of  mortality.  For  the 
nobles  indeed  the  fight  with  the  town  was  in  many 
ways  an  unequal  one.  Driven  hither  and  thither 
by  urgent  calls  of  war  or  of  the  King's  business, 
the  lord  was  scarcely  ever  at  home  to  look  to  his 
own  affairs.  In  the  frequent  absences  of  the  masters 
of  Berkeley,  perpetually  called  away  by  "  troubles  of 
state."  when  the  King  summoned  them  to  his  aid 
whether  for  civil  war  or  war  of  conquest,1  the 
neighbouring  towns  of  Bristol  and  Gloucester  found 
opportunity  to  escape  from  their  control ;  and  the 
march  of  the  baron  and  his  retainers  from  Berkeley 
was  a  subject  of  much  greater  gladness  to  the 
townsmen  of  Bristol  than  to  the  lord  of  the  castle 
himself;  for  "  the  household  and  foreign  accounts 
of  this  lord,"  we  are  told,  "  reveal  a  marvellous  un- 
willingness in  him  to  this  Scottish  war,  dispatching 
many  letters  and  messages  to  the  King,  and  other 
lords  and  favourites  about  him,  for  excuses." 2 
When,  as  a  reward  for  his  services,  one  of  the 
Berkeleys  was  given  the  custody  and  government  of 
the  town  of  Gloucester,3  he  was  also  charged  with  the 
government  of  Berwick,  and  was  moreover  called 
away  whenever  the  King  found  himself  in  military 
difficulties ;  so  that  the  Gloucester  burgesses  cannot 
have  had  much  to  fear  from  him.  The  care  of  the 


1  Berkeleys,  i.  226,  228. 

2  Ibid.  i.   183-185.  3  Ibid.  i.  227 


vin  TOWNS  ON  FEUDAL  ESTATES  265 

great  estates,  in  fact,  was  constantly  left  to  the 
women  of  the  house  and  to  stewards,  while  the 
master,  pressed  by  ambition,  or  quite  as  often 
by  the  driving  necessity  of  getting  money,  was 
fighting  in  Wales  or  Scotland,  or  was  looking  for 
plunder  in  France,  or  for  place  at  court.  For  three 
generations  the  lands  of  the  Pastons  in  Norfolk 
were  managed  by  the  capable  wives  of  absentee  land- 
lords— of  the  judge  who  must  have  spent  most  of 
his  time  in  London  or  on  circuit ;  of  his  son  the 
sharp  London  lawyer ;  and  of  his  grandson,  Sir  John, 
the  gay  young  soldier  who  hovered  between  London 
and  Calais,  and  whose  only  care  for  his  property  was 
to  press  anxiously  for  its  rents.  The  story  of 
the  Plumpton  family  was  much  the  same.  One 
of  the  Plumptons  spent  his  last  years  and  died  in 
France ;  and  no  sooner  did  the  young  Sir  William 
reach  his  majority  in  1426,  than  he  also  left  his 
Yorkshire  estates  and  set  off  to  join  the  French 
campaign.1 

On  the  noble  class  too  fell  the  heavy  consequences 
of  the  rebellions  and  civil  wars  of  which  they  were  the 
main  supporters.  If  the  lord  died  in  battle  his  estates 
might  pass  to  a  minor;  if  he  died  on  the  scaffold 
they  passed  to  the  crown;  or  long  imprisonment 
might  thwart  his  best  laid  plans  for  strengthening 
his  hold  over  his  boroughs.  The  young  Lord  Maurice 
of  Berkeley,  for  instance,  was  drawn  into  rebellion 
against  Edward  the  Second,  and  died  in  prison  four 
and  a  half  years  later.  During  the  whole  time  that 

1  Plumpton's  Correspondence,  1-1  i. 


266         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

lie  held  his  estates  he  was  only  in  freedom  for  four 
months ;  and  his  eldest  son,  who  was  imprisoned 
with  him,  was  not  set  at  liberty  till  some  months 
after  his  father's  death.1  Meanwhile  the  towns 
were  always  quick  to  make  their  profit  in  such  times 
of  disturbance  and  revolution,  as  for  example  when 
the  Earl  of  Devonshire  was  attainted  by  Edward 
the  Fourth  after  the  battle  of  Towton  for  his  support 
of  the  Lancastrian  cause,  and  the  citizens  of  Exeter 
seized  so  favourable  an  opportunity  to  claim  the 
restitution  of  a  suburb  stretching  down  to  the  river- 
side which  the  earls  had  held  to  strengthen  their  hold 
on  the  navigation  of  the  Exe.2 

Nor  was  the  lord's  position  made  more  hopeful  by 
the  furious  feuds  between  noble  and  noble  which 
distracted  the  provinces  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  the  incessant  lawsuits  by  which  the  landowners 
sought  to  mend  their  fortunes.  In  1463  James 
Lord  of  Berkeley  made  an  agreement  with  the 
Countess  of  Shrewsbury  that  they  would  have  no 
more  battles  at  law ;  for  he  was  then  sixty-nine,  and 
she  fifty-two,  and  neither  of  them  since  their  ages 
of  discretion  had  "  enjoyed  any  three  months  of 

1  Berkeleys,  i.  233-236,  272,  280.     Compare  the  story  of  Sir 
William  Plumpton,  who  fought  at  Towton  on  the  losing  side. 
He  was  brought  before  the  chief  justice  in  York  and  gave  a  bond 
for  the  payment  of  £2,000  before  next  Pentecost,  and  failing  to 
procure  it  had  to  give  himself  up  a  prisoner  at  the  Tower.     He 
obtained  a  pardon,  was  released  from  his  bond  in  1462,  and  had 
new  letters  of  pardon  in   1463,  but  was  still   unable  to  return 
home  till  1464,  after  he  had  been  through  a  new  trial  and  been 
acquitted.     (Plumpton's  Corres.  Ixvii-ix.  30.) 

2  Freeman's  Exeter,  166-7. 


vin  TOWNS  ON  FEUDAL  ESTATES  267 

freedom  from  lawsuits."  l  Nor  did  they  wage  their 
fight  in  the  law-courts  only,  but  carried  on  an  open  war 
by  which  Gloucestershire  had  been  distracted  since 
1421,  and  which  proved  one  of  the  most  deadly  of 
the  many  provincial  conflicts  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
Appeased  at  intervals  to  break  out  again  with 
renewed  force,  and  with  the  usual  incidents  of  hang- 
ings and  finings  and  imprisonments  and  ransomings, 
it  finally  culminated  in  1470  in  a  pitched  battle  on 
Nibley  Green,  where  the  Berkeley s  triumphantly 
maintained  their  cause  at  the  head  of  about  1,000 
fighting  men,  and  Lord  Lisle,  the  son  of  Lady  Shrews- 
bury, who  led  the  enemy's  army,  was  killed.  To 
country  folk  and  traders  this  feud  of  the  nobles 
carried  with  it,  we  are  told,  "  the  ill-effects  and  de- 
structions of  a  petty  war,  wherein  the  borough 
town  of  Berkeley,  for  her  part,  saw  the  burning 
and  prostration  of  many  of  her  ancient  houses,  as 
her  old  rent  which  till  that  time  was  £22  by  the 
year  and  upwards,  and  by  those  devastations  brought 
down  to  £11  and  under,  where  it  sticketh  to  this  day, 
without  recovery  of  her  ancient  lustre  or  greatness." : 
Such  a  strife  was  by  no  means  singular  or  without 
parallel,  and  the  histories  of  Norfolk,  Yorkshire, 
Derbyshire,  or  Lancashire  have  their  records  of 
similar  outrages.  Exeter  was  thrown  into  alarm 
by  a  great  fight  on  Clistheath  in  1453  between 
the  Earl  of  Devon  and  Lord  William  Bonvil  where 

.     l  Berkeleys,  ii.  95.    Compare  the  expenses  of  Fastolf  in  a  law- 
suit of  ten  years,  the  costs  of  which  were  recorded  in  a  roll  of 
seven  skins.     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iv.  1,  461.) 
-  Berkeleys,  ii.  65-73,  75,  84,  103-116. 


268          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

many  persons  were  grievously  wounded  and  much 
hurt  done  :  "  the  occasion  whereof  was  about  a  dog  ; 
but  great  displeasure  thereby  came  to  the  city,  where 
presently  after  the  fight  the  Lord  Bonvil  sheltered 
himself,  which  the  Earl  took  amiss,  thinking  it  had 
been  so  done  by  the  city  in  some  displeasure  to  him- 
self.'' l  The  mere  instinct  of  self-protection  naturally 
drove  the  towns  to  detach  their  interests  from  nobles 
whose  alliance  brought  disaster  and  ruin  to  simple 
traders,  and  in  every  borough  statute  after  statute 
forbidding  the  inhabitants  to  wear  the  "  livery  "  2  of 
any  lord  whatever,  testified  to  the  determination  of 
the  towns  to  cut  off  from  the  great  people  of  the 
country  round  every  possibility  of  stirring  up  faction 
within  their  borders. 

1  Freeman's  Exeter,  164  ;  Paston,  i.  xcviii,  350-1 ;  Proceedings 
of  the  Privy  Council,  v.,  xc-xci.  ;  vi.  Ixxviii-ix.     In  1437  a  com- 
mission of  inquiry  into  felonies  and  insurrections  in  Bedford  could 
not  be  held  because  Lord  Grey,  to  whom  the  town  belonged,  ap- 
peared with  a  strong  armed  force,  and  was  met  by  Lord  Fanhope 
ready  to  oppose  him  with  another  army.     (Proceedings  of  Privy 
Council,  v.,  Preface  xv-xvi.)    Account  given  by  witnesses  before 
Privy  Council,  v.  35,  39,  57.     Fresh  troubles  in  1442,  v.  192. 

2  For  the  evils  of  liveries  and  maintenance  under  Richard  the 
Second,  see  Richard  the  Redeless,  Pass.  i.  55  &c.,  ii.  74  &c.,  iii. 
309  &c.     The  wearing  of  liveries  was  forbidden  in  Shrewsbury 
lest  "  when  any  affray  or  trouble  fall  in  the  said  town  each  man 
having  livery  would  draw  to  his  master  or  to  his  fellow  and  not 
to  the  bailiffs."     (Owen,  i.  217.)     From  the  towns  these  evils 
seem  to  have  been  rigorously  and  effectually  banished  by  ordi- 
nances from  1309  (Freeman's  Exeter,  165,  143)  throughout  the 
two  following  centuries.     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  557 ;  Eng.  Gilds, 
385,  388-9,  393,  333  ;  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  3,  page  16.)     The  cases 
of  trouble  which  occur  are  rare.     (Nott.  Records,  ii.  384 ;  iii.  37, 
344-5.     Hist.  MSS.  Com.  viii.  415.     Hunt's  Bristol,  103-5.) 


vra  TOWNS  ON  FEUDAL  ESTATES  269 

But  if  boroughs  in  the  ownership  of  a  private 
lord  might  secure  advantages  through  his  poverty, 
his  misfortune,  or  his  weakness,  their  position  was 
one  of  essential  inferiority  as  compared  with  towns 
on  the  public  demesne.1  In  the  story  of  Liverpool 
we  have  a  curious  illustration  of  the  fortunes  of  a 
borough  whose  lot  it  was  to  fall  at  one  time  into  the 
charge  of  the  state,  and  at  another  to  be  thrown  into 
the  hands  of  a  noble — and  whose  vicissitudes  at 
last  left  it  in  a  sort  of  indeterminate  condition 


1  Leicester  shows  the  comparatively  slow  growth  of  freedom 
in  one  of  the  most  favoured  towns  dependent  on  a  great  lord. 
Its  great  charter  given  by  Edmund  Crouchback  in  1277,  and 
•translated  into  English  under  Henry  the  Sixth,  was  mainly  con- 
cerned with  the  ordering  of  legal  procedure  for  the  burghers  ; 
and  it  was  not  till  1376  that  the  town  bought  from  its  earl  the 
right  to  appoint  its  own  bailiff,  and  to  receive  the  annual  profits 
of  its  courts,  and  various  other  dues  and  fines.  The  town  pro- 
perty was  simply  a  tenement,  a  chamber,  and  a  small  place 
yielding  a  few  pence  yearly  till  1393,  when  it  was  allowed  to  hold 
a  little  property  for  the  repair  of  the  bridges  ;  and  not  till  1435 
were  the  mayor  and  the  corporation  given  the  right  to  acquire 
lands  and  rents  for  the  sustenation  of  the  town  and  mayoralty. 
(Hist.  MSS.  Com.  viii.  404,  412,  413,  414.  Thompson,  Mun. 
Hist.,  74.  A  pamphlet  on  the  Origin  of  the  Leicester  Corpora- 
tion by  J.  D.  Paul  gives  a  translation  of  Crouchback's  charter.) 
Doncaster  belonged  to  the  family  of  De  Mauley  till  the  middle  of 
the  fifteenth  century,  when  it  passed  for  a  few  years  to  the  Duke 
of  Northumberland,  and  in  1461  was  taken  into  the  possession  of 
the  Crown.  Edward  the  Fourth  made  it  a  free  borough  and  gave 
it  a  common  seal.  Henry  the  Seventh  in  1505  granted  to  the 
corporation  all  the  property  which  the  Crown  had  acquired  at 
Doncaster  on  the  attainder  of  Percy  in  1461,  and  for  a  yearly 
rent  of  £74  13«.  ll|cZ.  secured  to  it  the  rights  which  had  belonged 
to  the  ancient  feudal  lords.  (Hunter's  History  of  the  Deanery 
of  Doncaster,  i.  13-15.) 


270         TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

where    it   owed  a  deferential    obedience    to   patrons 
or  masters  on  every  side. 

Liverpool,  which  had  been  granted  by  Henry  the 
Second  to  the  constable  of  Lancaster  Castle,  was 
resumed  in  1207  by  John,  who  granted  it  a  charter 
of  trading  privileges.  A  new  charter  of  Henry  the 
Third,  in  1229,  gave  it  a  guild  merchant  and  hanse, 
with  freedom  from  toll,  and  the  rights  of  a  free 
borough  ;  and  on  the  very  next  day  after  this  grant 
Henry  gave  the  lease  of  the  fee-farm  to  the  burgesses 
for  four  years  at  £10  a  year.1  The  true  foundations 
of  municipal  independence  were  thus  laid.  The 
town  had  its  common  seal ;  one  of  its  two  bailiffs 
was  apparently  elected  by  the  people,  and  charged 
with  the  collecting  of  tolls  for  the  ferm  ;  and  the  busy 
trade  with  Ireland  at  that  time,  and  the  later  ad- 
vantage of  a  secure  place  of  embarkation  for  troops, 
which  became  very  important  as  the  harbour  of 
Chester  silted  up,  promised  prosperity.  In  the  same 
year,  however,  the  town  was  granted  away  by  the 
King  to  the  Earl  of  Chester,  then  passed  in  1232  to 
the  Earl  of  Derby;  and  in  1266  was  given  to  Edmund 
Crouchback,  Earl  of  Lancaster,  and  under  the  Lords 
of  Lancaster  Liverpool  remained  till  a  century  later, 
when  in  1361  it  passed  by  marriage  to  John  of 
Gaunt. 

All  hope  of  freedom  for  Liverpool  died  away  under 
its  new  lords.  The  grant  of  the  ferm  was  not  re- 
newed for  over  a  hundred  years  ;  and  at  an  enquiry 
of  "  Quo  "Warranto "  in  1292  under  Edward  the 

1  Picton's  Municipal  Eec.  of  Liverpool,  i.  1-4. 


vni  TOWNS  ON  FEUDAL  ESTATES  271 

First  "  certain  men  of  the  Borough  of  Liverpool 
came  for  the  commonalty,  and  say  that  they  have 
not  at  present  a  bailiff  of  themselves,  but  have  been 
accustomed  to  have,  until  Edmund  the  King's 
brother  impeded  them,  and  permits  them  not  to 
have  a  free  borough."  Wherefore  they  claim  only 
"  that  they  may  be  quit  of  common  fines  and 
amercements  of  the  county,  &c.,  and  of  toll,  stal- 
lage, &c.,  through  the  whole  kingdom,"  for  "  as  to  the 
other  liberties"  which  they  used  to  have  "the  afore- 
said Edmund  now  has  them."  They  quote  charters, 
to  show  that  their  ancient  liberties  had  been  held 
direct  from  the  crown,  and  the  court  decided  that 
"  Edmund  hath  usurped  and  occupied  the  aforesaid 
liberties,"  and  ordered  him  to  appear  before  it ;  but 
no  action  seems  to  have  been  taken  against  him,, 
and  for  forty  years  he  and  his  successors  went 
on  themselves  collecting  the  tolls.1  At  last  in 
1356  the  lord  Henry  allowed  the  townsmen  to 
elect  a  mayor  every  year,  and  the  next  year  the 
first  Duke  of  Lancaster  (father-in-law  of  John  of 
Gaunt)  leased  the  ferm  to  the  mayor  and  others  to- 
hold  for  the  burgesses  for  ten  years,2  and  Liverpool 
was  thus  restored  to  the  same  position  in  which  the 
King  had  put  it  a  hundred  and  thirty  years  earlier. 
But  even  now  its  limited  privileges  rested  simply  on 

1  Picton's  Municipal  Rec.  of  Liverpool,  i.  5-7. 

2  Ibid.   13,   14,  16.     From  this  time  leases  of  the  ferm  were 
very    numerous  and  were  constantly  granted  to  one   or  more 
individuals;  between  1354  and  1374  Richard  de  Aynesargh  and 
William  Adamson,  who  were  often  mayors,  took  such  leases  for 
several  terms.     (Picton's  Memorials  of  Liverpool,  ii.  54.) 


272          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUKY       CHAP. 

the  will  and  caprice  of  the  lord ;  he  might  give  the 
lease  of  the  ferm  with  the  right  of  collecting  tolls  for 
the  rent  to  the  mayor,  or  an  ex-mayor,  or  whomever 
lie  would  ;  he  might  grant  it  for  a  year,  or  for  ten 
years,  or  he  mig-ht  take  it  all  back  into  his  own  hands. 

•J  O 

As  a  matter  of  fact  questions  of  convenience  and  profit 
seem  to  have  made  it  advisable  to  leave  the  collec- 
tions of  taxes  mainly  with  the  town  officers.  When 
John  of  Gaunt  granted  his  lease,  at  the  request 
of  the  "  honest  and  discreet  men  of  the  burgesses  " 
the  articles  were  embodied  in  a  patent  "  to  ourselves, 
to  the  mayor,  and  to  the  bailiffs,  " a  and  in  his  time 
the  lease  was  commonly  granted  for  ten  years.2 

However  some  of  the  evils  of  such  a  system 
might  be  mitigated  by  the  prudence  of  rulers  bent 
on  securing  the  utmost  possible  profits  from  their 
subjects,  there  was  no  real  guarantee  of  freedom 
or  security  to  the  people.  But  when  at  the  death 
of  John  of  Gaunt  in  1399,  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster 
was  united  to  the  crown,  there  was  a  new  gleam 
of  hope.  The  ferm  of  Liverpool,  like  that  of  Leicester, 
was  now  again  paid  to  the  King  ;  an  effort  seems 
to  have  been  made  to  abolish  the  old  uncertain3 
system,  and  in  1421  Henry  V.  granted  the 

1  Picton's  Mem.  of  Liverpool,  i.  35-36.          2  Ibid.  i.  27-28. 

3  In  1413  the  burgesses  presented  a  petitiori  complaining  that 
their  privileges  were  infringed  upon  by  the  shire  officers  coming 
into  the  borough  and  holding  courts  by  force,  by  which  "the 
said  burgesses  are  grievously  molested,  vexed,  and  disturbed,  to 
the  great  hindrance  and  detriment  of  the  said  borough  and  the 
disinheriting  of  the  burgesses."  It  was  declared  on  the  other 
side,  that  the  mayor  and  bailiffs  had  held  the  King's  Courts 
without  authority  and  received  the  tolls  and  profits.  It  is  not 


vin  TOWNS  ON  FEUDAL  ESTATES  273 

fee-farm  for  one  year  to  the  corporation,  while  an 
inquiry  was  held  as  to  the  value  of  the  property 
and  the  terms  of  its  tenure  since  the  time  of  John 
of  Gaunt.  The  King's  death  however  stopped  the 
proceedings,  and  the  rising  fortunes  of  the  town 
were  extinguished  by  the  two  great  families  who 
were  from  this  time  definitely  settled  down  on  it.1 

For  Liverpool  was  now  hemmed  in  between  two  rival 
fortresses.  Sir  John  Stanley  with  an  army  of  followers 
was  encamped  in  a  great  square  embattled  fort,  with 
subordinate  towers  and  buildings  forming  three  sides 
of  a  quadrangle,  the  whole  planted  on  the  river  edge, 
and  commanding  both  the  town  and  the  Mersey, 
where  the  Stanleys'  ships  were  moored,  and  whence 
they  set  sail  for  their  new  kingdom,  the  Isle  of  Man.2 
Sir  Richard  Molyneux,  as  hereditary  Constable,  Jield 

known  how  the  case  ended.  Ibid.  i.  31-2.  Picton's  Mun. 
Records,  i.  20. 

]  The  revenue  from  Liverpool  in  1296  was  ,£25  :  it  then  had  168 
inhabited  houses.  (Picton's  Mem.  of  Liverpool,  i.  20.)  In  1342 
the  personalty  of  the  burgesses  taxed  was  £110  13s.  3d.,  that  is, 
the  average  personalty  of  each  was  about  one  mark  (25).  The 
revenue  in  1327  was  £30;  in  1346  it  was  £38  (26),  and 
remained  the  same  in  1394  (31).  In  1444  it  was  reduced  to 
£21  ;  in  1455  to  £17  16s.  8d.  ;  and  under  Edward  the  Fourth  to 
£14  (36-7).  In  1515  an  inquiry  was  made  as  to  the  decay  of  the 
revenue  (38),  and  the  Act  of  1544  put  Liverpool  in  the  list  of 
towns  which  had  wholly  fallen  into  decay  (45).  Two  plagues, 
one  in  1540,  another  in  1548,  probably  carried  off  half  its  popu- 
lation (47);  and  in  1565  it  had  but  138  inhabited  houses,  and 
probably  seven  or  eight  hundred  inhabitants,  and  twelve  vessels 
navigated  on  an  average  by  six  men  each  (55).  There  were 
five  streets  under  Edward  the  Third,  and  seven  under  Elizabeth 
(62). 

-  Fortified  in  1406.     Picton's  Mun.  Records,  i.  21,  22. 

VOL.    I  T 


274          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

the  King's  castle  a  little  further  along  the  river, 
with  its  area  of  fifty  square  acres  defended  by  four 
towers,  and  surrounded  by  a  fosse  thirty  yards  wide, 
much  of  which  was  cut  in  the  solid  rock.1  When  a 
quarrel  broke  out  in  1424  between  the  lords  of  these 
rival  fortresses,  Stanley  collected  a  multitude  of 
people  in  the  town  to  the  number  of  2,000  or  more, 
for  he  declared  that  Sir  Richard  Molyneux  "  will  come 
hither  with  great  congregations,  riots,  and  great 
multitude  of  people  to  slay  and  beat  the  said  Thomas 
(Stanley),  his  men  and  his  servants,  the  which  he 
would  withstand  if  he  might."  On  the  other  hand 
Sir  Richard  had  gathered  his  forces  near  the  West 
Derby  fen,  "  and  there  on  a  mow  within  the  said 
town  we  saw  the  said  Sir  Richard  with  great  con- 
gregations, rout  and  multitude  to  the  number  of 
1,00*0  men  and  more,  arrayed  in  manner  as  to  go  to 
battle,  and  coming  in  fast  towards  Liverpool  town."  A 
pitched  battle  was  only  prevented  by  the  sheriff  of 
the  county,  who  hastened  to  the  rescue  at  the  head 
of  his  forces,  and  succeeded  in  seizing  first  Stanley 
in  his  tower,  and  then  Molyneux  as  he  rode  towards 
the  town.2 

Such  scenes  of  riot  and  disorder  were  fatal  to  the 
prosperity  and  municipal  hopes  of  Liverpool ;  but 
there  was  no  escape  from  their  unwelcome  patrons. 
Both  the  great  houses  fought  for  York  ;  and  in  return 

1  A  little  thatched  building  in  the  High  Street  which  had  to 
serve  as  toll  house,  town  hall,  and  gaol,  but  the  greater  number 
of   criminals  were  imprisoned    and    judged  in   the  Stanley  and 
Molyneux  Castles.     Picton's  Memorials,  ii.  25-6. 

2  Picton's  Mem.  of  Liverpool,  i.  32-3. 


vm  TOWNS  ON  FEUDAL  ESTATES  275 

Edward  the  Fourth  granted  to  Stanley  the  borough  of 
Liverpool  and  other  estates  formerly  belonging  to  the 
Duchy  of  Lancaster ;  while  Molyneux  was  made  chief 
forester  of  West  Derby,  steward  of  West  Derby  and 
Salford,  and  constable  of  Liverpool  castle.  Kichard 
the  Third  again  gave  to  the  Stanleys  large  grants  in 
Lancashire,  and  confirmed  the  Molyneux  people  in 
their  offices,1  and  Henry  the  Seventh  favoured  their 
claims.  The  lords  were  great  and  important  people  in 
those  days,  and  the  little  town  of  no  account.  Its  in- 
dependence died  away,  and  the  troubles  of  the  ferm 
revived  in  their  old  bad  form.  The  question  of  the 
lease  was  never  settled,  but  in  any  case  it  passed  out  of 
the  hands  of  the  corporation.  From  1495  it  was  for 
many  years  granted  to  David  ap  Griffith,  who  when 
he  became  mayor  in  1502  had  it  renewed  to  him. 
Henry  the  Eighth  leased  it  in  1525  and  1529  to  his 
widow  and  son-in-law  for  terms  which  were  to  expire 
in  1566.  In  1537,  however,  it  was  let  to  Thomas 
Holcraft,  who  sublet  it  to  Sir  AVilliam  Molyneux. 
The  mayor  and  corporation  under  Edward  the  Sixth 
declared  the  authority  of  the  Molyneux  family  to  be 
illegal,  and  claimed  under  the  old  lease  granted  to 
Griffith.  For  many  years  they  fought  obstinately 
in  the  case,  holding  perhaps  that  the  house  of 
their  old  mayor  more  nearly  represented  the  town 
and  its  interests  than  the  house  of  Molyneux ;  and 
one  of  them  was  thrown  into  prison  for  his  resistance 
under  Mary.2  The  ferm  was  not  finally  granted  to 
the  corporation  till  1672;  and  Liverpool  was  for  a 

1  Picton's  Mem.  of  Liverpool,  i.  36,  37. 

2  Ibid.  i.  37,  38,  46,  48-9. 

T   2 


276          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY    CH.  vm 

couple  of  centuries  so  sorely  tried  by  the  necessity 
of  keeping  well  with  the  two  great  families  that 
overawed  it  as  well  as  with  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Duchy  of  Lancaster,1  whether  in  the  collecting  of  its 
scanty  taxes  or  the  choosing  of  its  burghers  for 
Parliament,  that  the  history  of  its  civic  developement 
long  remained  of  no  importance.2 

1  Picton,  i.  63. 

2  As  an  illustration  of  the  reverse  process,  showing  the  im- 
pulse given  to  municipal  liberty  when  a  borough  was  transferred 
from  private  ownership  to  the  State,  see  the  case  of  Sandwich 
<Ch.  XII.). 


CHAPTER   IX 

BATTLE  FOR  FREEDOM 
(3)  Toivns  on  Church  Estates 

THE  towns  on  ecclesiastical  estates  form  a  dis- 
tinct group,  whose  lot  was  materially  different  from 
boroughs  on  ancient  demesne  or  on  feudal  lands.  All 
lay  property  was  subject  only  to  laws  and  customs 
which  had  been  ultimately  determined  by  the  neces- 
sities of  social  or  political  expediency,  and  which, 
dealing  with  secular  possessions  for  secular  purposes, 
were  capable  of  being  unmade  as  they  had  been  made. 
But  the  towns  which  were  reckoned  among  eccles- 
iastical estates  lay  under  the  special  conditions 
that  governed  those  estates,  where  religious  and 
supernatural  influences  had  been  forced  into  the 
service  of  material  wealth,  and  the  attempt  was  made 
by  spiritual  authority  to  fix  fluctuating  political  con- 
ditions into  perpetual  immutability.  Prelates  of  the 
Church  professed  to  rule  with  a  double  title,  not 
only  as  feudal  lords  of  the  soil,  but  as  guardians 
of  the  patrimony  of  S.  Peter,  holding  property  in 
trust  for  a  great  spiritual  corporation,  and  exercising 


278          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

an  authority  maintained  by  formidable  sanctions.  If 
the  watchwords  of  property  are  always  impressive, 
among  lay  folk  they  are  still  open,  under  sufficiently 
strong  pressure,  to  reasonable  discussion ;  and  it  is 
admitted  that  temporal  rights  may  be  plausibly  ex- 
changed for  others  more  expedient,  or  may  be  fairly 
bartered  away  as  a  means  of  buying  a  continued  and 
secure  existence.  The  Church,  however,  by  a  fruitful 
confusion  of  the  terms  ecclesiastical  and  religious, 
assumed  to  hold  property  by  another  tenure  than 
any  temporal  owner;  girt  round  about  by  tremendous 
safeguards  to  which  the  lay  world  could  not  aspire, 
and  leaning  on  supernatural  support  for  deliverance 
from  all  perils,  it  could  the  better  refuse  to  discuss 
bargains  suggested  by  mere  political  expediency. 

The  difficulty  of  reconciling  this  assumption  of 
permanent  and  indivisible  supremacy  with  the  actual 
facts  of  life  became  very  apparent  with  the  passage  of 
the  centuries,  when  from  a  variety  of  causes  it  was 
no  longer  possible  for  the  clerical  order  to  maintain 
the  place  it  had  once  held  as  the  advanced  guard 
of  industry  and  learning,  and  its  tendency  was  to 
sink  into  the  position  of  a  parasite  class,  producing 
nothing  itself,  but  clinging  to  the  means  of  wealth 
developed  by  the  labour  of  a  subject  people.  With 
the  wisdom  born  of  experience  the  Church  was  ready 
to  give  to  its  tenants  all  trading  privileges,  and  any 
liberties  that  directly  made  for  the  accumulation  of 
wealth  ; l  but  the  flow  of  its  liberality  was  suddenly 

1  See  charter  to  Beverley  ;  Stubbs'  Charters,  105  ;  Lambert's 
Gild  Life,  73-6,  York ;  Stubbs'  Charters,  304,  Salisbury ;  Gross' 
Gild  Merchant,  ii.  209-10. 


ix  TOWNS  OX  CHURCH  ESTATES  279 

dried  up  when  townspeople  proposed  to  add  political 
freedom  to  material  gain,  nor  was  it  likely  to  be 
quickened  again  by  the  crude  simplicity  with  which 
the  common  folk  resolved  the  question  of  the  lordship 
of  canons  and  monks. 

"  Unneth  (scarcely)  might  they  matins  say, 
For  counting  and  court  holding;" 

"  Saint  Benet  made  never  none  of  them 
To  have  lordship  of  man  nor  town."  T 

The  rising  municipalities  on  the  other  hand,  even 
if  they  had  a  history  but  a  century  or  two  old,  were 
endowed  with  all  the  young  and  vigorous  forces  of 
the  modern  world  :  nor  is  there  a  sino-le  instance  of  a 

*  O 

town  where  a  lively  trade  went  hand  in  hand  with  a 
subservient  spirit,  or  where  a  temper  of  unconquer- 
able audacity  in  commercial  enterprise  did  not  throw 
its  exuberant  force  into  the  region  of  government  and  . 
politics.  With  all  their  abounding  energy,  however, 
burghers  had  still  to  discover  that  freedom  might 
be  won  anywhere  save  at  the  hands  of  an  ecclesias- 
tical lord.2  If  Norwich  received  from  the  bounty  of 

1  Pol.  Poems  and  Songs  (Rolls'  Series).  Ed.  Wright,  i.  327,  334. 

2  The  Church  always  showed  itself  exceedingly  hostile  to  the 
formation  of  communes.     The  synod  of  Paris  in  1213  denoiinced 
the  "  synagogues  (c'est-a-dire  ces  associations)  que  des  usuriers 
et  des  exacteurs  out  constitutes  dans  presque  toutes  les  cites, 
villes  et  villages  de  la  France,  appelees  vulgairement  communes, 
qui  ont  etabli  des  usages  diaboliques,  contraires  a  I' organisation 
ecclesiastique  et  tendant    au   renversement  jyresque  complet   de    la 
juridiction   de    I'Eglise."     (Luchaire,    242.      See   especially   pp. 

235-50.) 


280          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

Kings  one  privilege  after  another  in  quick  succession 
till  its  emancipation  was  complete,  its  neighbour 
Lynn,  equally  wealthy  and  enterprising,  but  sub- 
ject to  the  Bishop  of  Norwich,  was  fighting  in  1520 
to  secure  just  such  control  of  its  local  courts  as 
Norwich  had  won  for  the  asking  three  hundred  years 
before.  The  royal  borough  of  Sandwich  had  been 
allowed  to  elect  its  mayor  and  govern  itself  for 
centuries,  while  Eomney,  also  one  of  the  Cinque 
Ports  but  one  which  happened  to  be  owned  by 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  did  not  gain  the  right 
to  choose  its  own  mayor  till  the  time  of  Elizabeth, 
and  was  meanwhile  ruled  by  any  one  of  the 
archbishop's  squires  or  servants  whom  he  might 
send  as  its  bailiff,  and  forced  to  adopt  any  expedient 
by  which  while  under  the  forms  of  bondage  it 
might  win  the  practice  of  freedom.  A  dozen  gen- 
erations of  Nottingham  burghers  had  been  ordering 
their  own  market,  taking  the  rents  of  their  butcher- 
ies and  fish  stalls  and  storage  rooms,  supervising 
their  wool  traders  and  mercers,  and  admitting  new 
burgesses  to  their  company  by  common  consent, 
while  the  men  of  Reading  were  still  trying  in  vain 
every  means  by  which  they  might  win  like  privi- 
leges from  the  abbot  who  owned  the  town.  Every- 
where the  same  story  is  repeated,  with  varying  inci- 
dents of  passion  and  violence.  The  struggle  some- 
times lasted  through  centuries :  in  other  cases  it 
was  brought  to  an  early  close.  Some  boroughs  won 
a  moderate  success,  while  others  wasted  their  labour 
and  their  treasure  for  small  reward.  In  one  place 
ruin  settles  down  on  the  town,  in  another  gleams  of 


ix  TOWNS  ON  CHURCH  ESTATES  281 

temporary  success  kindle  new  hopes,  in  a  third  the 
dogged  fight  goes  on  with  monotonous  persistence  ; 
but  everywhere  anger  and  vengeance  wait  for  the  day 
of  retaliation,  when  monastery  and  priory  should  be 
levelled  to  the  ground. 

I.  There  was  a  distinct  difference  in  the  lot  of 
towns  under  the  control  of  a  bishop,  and  others  which 
were  subject  to  a  convent.  Burghers  who  owed 
allegiance  to  a  bishop  had  to  do  with  a  master  whose 
wealth,  whose  influence,  whose  political  position, 
whose  training,  made  him  a  far  more  formidable 
opponent  than  any  secular  lord.  On  the  other 
hand  he  probably  lived  at  some  distance  from  the 
borough,  and,  charged  as  he  was  with  the  adminis- 
tration of  his  bishopric  and  the  estates  of  the  see, 
besides  all  the  business  of  a  great  court  official 
occupied  in  weighty  matters  of  state,  he  had  but 
limited  attention  to  give  to  its  affairs.  As  the  see 
passed  from  hand  to  hand,  a  resolute  fight  with  an 
over- ambitious  borough  which  was  begun  by  one 
bishop  might  die  away  under  the  feebler  rule,  the 
indifference,  or  the  wiser  judgement  of  his  successor. 
In  the  case  therefore  of  towns  on  episcopal  estates,  if 
the  struggle  was  arduous  and  costly,  still  its  issue 
was  not  irrevocably  determined  beforehand,  and  the 
burghers  might  hope  for  at  least  partial  victory. 
But  the  emancipation  of  the  townsmen  was  long 
deferred,  and  in  the  fifteenth  century  there  were 
boroughs  where  the  bishop's  hand  still  pressed 
heavily  on  the  inhabitants.1 

1  The  Bishop  of  Salisbury  by  a  royal  charter  of  1304  got  the 
right  to  tallage  the  townspeople  of  Salisbury,  while  the  burghers 


282          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP 

One  of  the  greatest  trading  towns  in  England  gives 
such  a  record  of  ceaseless  contention  carried  on 
to  win  rights  which  had  been  peacefully  granted 
long  before  to  every  prosperous  borough  on  the 
royal  demesne.  The  Bishop  of  Norwich  had  been 
lord  of  Lynn  since  its  earliest  history.1  It  is  true 
that  about  1100  A.D.,  one  Bishop  Herbert  made  a 
grant  of  the  Church  of  S.  Margaret  and  the  little 
borough  that  lay  around  it — between  Millfleet  and 
Purfleet — to  the  monks  of  Norwich.  But  the  land 
beyond  these  boundaries  still  belonged  to  the  see. 
Lying  as  it  did  at  the  mouth  of  the  Ouse,  and 
forming  the  only  outlet  for  the  trade  of  seven  shires, 
Lynn  was  destined  to  be  one  of  the  great  commercial 

were  given  municipal  privileges  the  same  as  those  of  Winchester. 
In  1305,  however,  the  burghers,  rather  than  pay  tallage  to  the 
bishop,  surrendered  their  municipal  privileges  to  the  King,  and 
promised  to  give  up  to  him  their  common  seal.  (Rot.  Parl.  i. 
174-6.)  But  in  the  composition  made  the  next  year  between  the 
lord  bishop  and  the  citizens,  those  who  had  shared  in  the  revolt 
and  had  not  made  their  submission  were  utterly  separated  and 
removed  from  privileges  of  trade  or  government.  (Gross,  ii. 
209-10.)  In  1396  there  was  again  a  quarrel  between  the  bishop 
and  the  citizens,  and  the  case  was  carried  to  the  King's  Council, 
when  the  mayor  and  commonalty  entered  into  a  recognizance  to 
the  King  in  £20,000  to  behave  well  to  the  bishop,  and  two  hundred 
of  the  citizens  entered  into  recognizances  to  the  bishop,  each  one  in 
the  sum  of  £1,000.  In  the  agreement,  however,  certain  provisions 
were  made  to  prevent  the  ecclesiastics  from  taking  advantage  in 
any  way  of  this  treaty.  (Madox,  142.) 

The  Commons  in  giving  the  grant  of  1435  pray  that  no 
prelate  may  be  a  collector,  adding  that  the  dioceses  of  bishops  and 
the  neighbourhood  of  abbeys  were  greatly  oppressed  by  ecclesias- 
tical lords.  (Rogers'  Agric.  and  Prices,  iv.  164.) 

1  Our  Borough,  by  E.  M.  Beloe,  1-3. 


ix  TOWNS  ON  CHURCH  ESTATES  283 

ports  of  the  east  coast,  and  the  bishops  proved  good 
stewards  of  their  property.  As  population  outgrew 
the  Lynn  of  older  days,  with  its  little  market  shut 
in  between  the  Guildhall  and  S.  Margaret's  where 
the  booths  then  as  'now  leaned  against  the  walls  of 
the  parish  church,  and  its  tangle  of  narrow  lanes 
leading  to  the  river  side,  houses  began  to  reach  out 
over  the  desolate  swamp  that  stretched  to  the  north 
along  the  river  side.  Under  the  energetic  rule  of  the 
prelates  the  sea  which  ebbed  and  flowed  over  the 
marsh  was  driven  back,  and  a  great  wall  raised 
against  it,  340  feet  long  and  nine  feet  thick  at  the 
base ;  while  another  stone  wall  ran  along  the  eastern 
side  to  protect  the  town  from  enemies  who  might 
approach  it  by  land.  In  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth 
century  the  "  Bishop's  Lynn"  rose  on  the  newly  won 
land  along  the  river  bank,  with  its  great  market- 
place, its  church,  its  Jewry,  its  merchant  houses ;  and 
soon  in  the  thick  of  the  busiest  quarter  by  the 
wharves  appeared  the  "  stone  house "  of  the  bishop 
himself,  looking  closely  out  on  the  "  strangers' 
ships"  that  made  their  way  along  the  Ouse,  laden 
with  provisions  and  merchandise. 

Lynn  was  now  in  a  fair  way  to  become  the 
Liverpool  of  mediaeval  times.  Under  King  John  its 
prudent  bishop  obtained  for  the  town  charters 
granting  it  all  the  liberties  and  privileges  of  a  free 
borough,  saving  the  rights  of  its  lords ; l  and  then 
at  once  proceeded  by  a  bargain  with  the  convent  at 
Norwich  to  win  back  for  the  see  the  whole  of  the  lay 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  3,  185-6. 


284          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUKY      CHAP. 

property  in  the  old  borough,  leaving  to  the  monks 
only  the  churches  and  spiritual  rights.  Once  more 
sole  master  of  the  town,  his  supremacy  was  only 
troubled  by  the  lords  of  Castle  Rising  who,  by  virtue 
of  a  grant  from  William  Rufus,  claimed  half  the 
profits  of  the  tolbooth  and  duties  of  the  port,  while 
the  bishop  had  the  other  half.  In  1240  however  an 
exact  agreement  was  drawn  up  between  prelate  and 
baron  as  to  their  respective  rights ;  and  the  bailiffs 
of  both  powers  maintained  a  somewhat  boisterous 
jurisdiction  over  the  waters  of  Lynn,1  collected  their 
share  of  dues  paid  by  the  town  traders  on  cargoes 
of  herrings,  or  on  the  wood,  skins,  and  wine  they 
imported  from  foreign  parts,  and  in  their  own  way 
made  distresses  for  customs,  plaints,  and  so  forth. 
Thus  Robert  of  Montault,  in  the  time  of  Edward  the 
Second,  set  up  a  court  under  his  own  bailiff  at  one  of 
the  bridges,  and  caused  the  merchants  "  rowing  and 
flowing  to  the  said  town  of  Lynn  with  their  ships 
and  boats,  laden  as  well  with  men  as  with  mer- 
chandise," to  be  summoned,  distrained,  and  harassed, 
"  both  by  menacing  them  with  hurling  of  stones 
that  they  come  to  land  and  tarry,  and  by  extorting 
heavy  fines  from  them,"  till  at  last  in  despair  the 
traders  gave  up  their  business,  and  sold  all  their 
ships  and  boats.  And  when  the  exasperated  burghers 
in  their  turn  set  upon  these  alien  officers  in  1317 
and  threw  Robert  himself  into  prison,2  this  out- 

1  For  the  troubles  of  the  mayor  and  community  in  trying 
to  carry  out  the  King's  laws  in  the  presence  of  this  divided 
jurisdiction,  see  Rot.  Parl.  i.  331. 

-  There  had  been  trouble  the  year  before  which  Robert's  soft 


ix  TOWNS  ON  CHURCH  ESTATES  285 

break  only  brought  upon  them  new  calamities, 
for  they  were  condemned  by  the  King's  judges  to 
make  atonement  for  their  crime  by  paying  to  the 
offended  lord  within  the  next  six  or  seven  years  a 
fine  of  four  thousand  pounds ;  which  was  practically 
equal  to  the  confiscation  of  the  whole  of  the  munici- 
pal expenditure  for  about  thirty  years.  Soon  after 
this,  however,  the  rights  of  the  lords  of  Rising  were 
sold  to  the  Queen  Dowager  Isabella  and  passed 
through  her  to  Edward  the  Third ;  so  the  rough 
and  ready  methods  of  their  bailiffs  came  to  an  end.1 

The  power  of  the  bishop  on  the  other  hand  was 
still  untouched.  He  held  the  Hall  Court  through  his 
steward ;  and  held  further  the  Court  Leet  and  view 

words  failed  to  dissipate.  "  Know,  dear  friends,"  be  writes, 
"  that  I  am  surely  concerned  for  your  trouble,  and  if  I  could  give 
you  ease  or  alleviation  of  your  trouble  I  would  do  it  most  readily, 
but  assuredly,  dear  friends,  I  am  at  present  in  sucb  misfortune  of 
money  tbat  ....  wherefore  I  pray  you,  my  dear  friends,  that 
you  put  me  in  possession  of  my  moneys  as  speedily  as  you  can, 
since  of  a  truth  I  can  no  longer  dispense  with  them  which  much 
troubles  me.  And  with  respect  to  the  wrong  that  was  done  to 
my  bailiff ,  you  have  sent  me  word  that  the  parties  are  in  agree- 
ment. Know  you  that  though  peace  be  made  between  them  the 
contempt  done  to  me  is  not  redressed,  wherefore,  I  pray  you, 
dear  sirs,  that  you  will  take  order  amongst  yourselves  that  amends 
may  be  made  to  me  for  the  aforesaid  contempt.  Adieu,  dear 
friends  !  May  he  give  you  happy  and  long  life  ! "  Hist.  MSS- 
Com.  xi.  part  3,  241-4. 

1  For  the  King's  bailiffs,  see  the  petition  in  1382  to  the  Lord 
Chancellor  for  relief  from  extortionate  demands  of  the  bailiffs  of 
the  Tolbooth.  The  bailiffs  were  perhaps  not  to  blame;  in  1396 
and  1397  they  had  to  pay  20  marks  of  silver  out  of  receipts 
to  the  Duke  of  Britanny ;  in  1398,  10  marks  to  the  Duke  of 
York ;  in  1400,  8£  to  the  Duke  of  Lancaster.  Ibid.  244-5. 


286          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

of  frankpledge ;  and  owned  the  Tolbooth  Court. 
There  was  indeed  a  mayor/  but  his  authority  was 
small,  for  the  bishop  who  had  been  eager  to  grant 
his  burghers  the  privileges  of  trade  was  less  eager 
to  see  them  set  up  any  real  self-government.  Owing 
his  post  to  the  bishop's  approval  and  nomination,  if 
the  mayor  failed  in  obedience  or  respect  his  place 
might  be  at  once  forfeited.  His  power  of  levy- 
ing taxes  was  limited  and  subject  to  his  lord's 
control,  nor  could  he  make  distress  for  sums  levied 
011  the  commonalty.  He  was  not  charged  with  the 
custody  or  the  defence  of  the  town  ;  it  was  the  bishop 
who  had  command  of  the  town  gates,  who  could 
order  them  to  be  shut  at  his  own  will,  and  with  a 
following  of  men-at-arms  could  enforce  the  order.3 
What  was  far  more  important,  the  bishop  on  the 
plea  of  protecting  the  poor  from  tyranny  had  with- 
drawn from  him  the  power  of  compelling  inhabitants 
to  take  up  the  franchise,  and  by  thus  establishing  in 
the  borough  a  population  dependent  on  himself  had 
permanently  divided  its  forces.4 

As  in  other  towns,  however,  so  here  the  Guild 
Merchant  proved  itself  a  most  powerful  organization 
for  the  winning  of  local  independence.5  Lynn  was 
already  in  the  thirteenth  century  becoming  one  of 
the  richest  towns  in  the  country,  and  the  mayor 
was  supported  by  a  Guild  as  masterful  and  as 

1  The  charter  of  1268  granted  the  right  to  elect  a  mayor  in 
accordance  with  the  former  charter  of  the  bishop.     Hist.  MSS. 
Com.  xi.  part  3,  186,  246  ;  Gross,  ii.  158. 

2  Gross,  ii.  165.          3  Gross,  ii.  155;  Paston  Letters,  ii.  86-7.. 
4  Gross,  ii.  155-6.  5  See  Yol.  II.,  Chap.  XI Y. 


is  TOWNS  ON  CHURCH  ESTATES  287 

wealthy  as  any  in  England.  When  once  the  question 
was  raised  whether  he  or  the  bishop  was  really  to 
command  within  its  gates,  two  equally  matched  and 
formidable  forces  were  brought  into  play  ;  and  a  war 
of  two  hundred  years  was  conducted  on  either  side 
with  violence  and  craft,  and  remained  of  doubtful 
issue  to  the  last.  The  bishop  narrowly  watched  every 
effort  made  by  the  mayor  to  enlarge  his  powers  or 
exalt  his  state  ;  and  the  mayor  was  no  less  jealous  of 
the  pretensions  of  his  lord.  In  the  course  of  many 
experiments  in  the  making  of  constitutions  for  its 
government,  Lynn  was  again  and  again  torn  with  dis- 
putes, and  harassed  by  the  difficulties  of  rightly 
adjusting  the  powers  of  its  various  classes ;  and  in 
every  constitutional  struggle  the  bishop  interfered 
anew,  and  often  almost  dictated  the  final  settlement. 
The  burghers  treated  him  as  occasion  served.  Constant 
gifts  were  offered  to  soften  his  heart.  A  pipe  of  red 
wine,  a  vessel  of  Rhine  wine,  portions  of  oats  writh  a 
sturgeon,  pike  and  tenches,  formed  one  of  these  peace 
offerings  ; l  at  another  time  it  would  be  a  costly  gift  of 
wax.  But  what  the}'  gave  with  one  hand  they  wrere 
ready  to  take  away  with  the  other  ;  and  when  chance 
happily  favoured  them  appropriated  without  scruple  a 
house,  100  acres  of  land  and  twenty  acres  of  pasturage 
which  the  bishop  held  in  right  of  his  church  of  Holy 
Trinity  at  Norwich.2  As  disputes  grew  hot,  now 
over  one  point,  now  over  another,  prelate  and  town 
alike  called  the  king's  authority  to  their  aid.  If  a 
sea-wall  was  washed  away  by  a  high  tide,  the 

1  Blomefield,  iii.  163.          2  In  1403.     Blomefield,  viii.  531. 


288         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

burghers  would  cry  to  the  Privy  Council  to  compel  the 
bishop  to  rebuild  it ; l  or  they  would  demand  justice 
against  him  on  the  plea  that  he  had  usurped  their 
own  officers'  right  to  hold  the  Leet  Court  and  the 
Tolbooth  Court.  The  decision  of  the  crown  was  given 
sometimes  on  one  side,  sometimes  on  the  other ;  or 
the  sovereign  might  for  a  time  take  the  disputed 
authority  into  his  own  hands.  But  it  was  inevit- 
able that  the  final  gain  should  fall  to  the  king, 
whose  authority  was  strengthened  by  every  appeal 
to  his  supreme  jurisdiction;  while  lesser  profits  came 
to  the  court  by  the  way — gifts  to  high  officials  and 
great  people,  and  to  the  royal  judges  when  they 
came  to  hold  their  assizes  in  the  Guild  Hall,  and  the 
town  lavished  its  treasures  in  costly  dinners  and 
varied  wines  and  presents  to  them  and  to  their 
clerks. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  we 
can  trace  the  progress  of  the  long  strife  as  the  town 
gradually  perfected  its  municipal  organization.  First 
came  the  necessary  financial  precautions.  In  1305 
the  Guild  established  itself  more  firmly  by  a  charter 
which  secured  to  it  all  its  lands  and  tenements ; 
and  the  mayor  obtained  power  to  distrain  for  sums 
levied  on  the  commonalty.2  Then  at  an  assembly 
held  in  the  Guildhall  in  1314  authority  was  given  to 
twenty- six  '  persons  to  elect  twelve  of  the  more 
sufficient  of  the  town  to  make  provision  for  all 

1  Proceedings  of   Privy  Council,  vol.  i.,  167  (1401). 

2  Hist.  MSS.    Com.    xi.  3,  186-7.     In  1307  the  mayor  and 
community  got  a  grant  of  land  from  the  bishop  for  their  basin  for 
water.     Ibid.  239. 


ix  TOWNS  ON  CHURCH  ESTATES  289 

business  touching  the  community  in  the  King's 
parliament  and  elsewhere.1  But  the  real  struggle 
seems  to  have  begun  about  1327  when  much  money 
was  spent  on  lawyers,  negotiations  with  the  bishop, 
and  a  new  charter,  and  the  business  was  still  going 
on  in  1330  with  more  counsels'  fees  and  messengers 
to  London.  Finally  in  1335  the  town  bought  a  new 
charter  from  the  king  at  a  cost  of  £55  and  a  multitude 
of  gifts  to  king  and  queen  and  bishop.2  In  this  year 
or  the  next  it  obtained,  among  other  things,  the  right 
to  have  all  wills  that  affected  property  in  the  town 
proved  in  the  Guild  Hall  before  the  mayor  and  bur- 
gesses.3 The  bishop  seems  to  have  found  means 
of  defeating  the  burghers'  intention  in  this  particular 
claim ;  but  there  still  remained  the  one  important 
question  which  lay  behind  all  minor  struggles — that 
of  the  administration  of  justice  in  the  town — the 
question  whether  it  was  the  mayor  or  an  ecclesiastical 
officer  who  should  preside  in  the  courts,  and  whether 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  3,  240.  -  Ibid.  213-215. 

3  A  will  was  proved  after  a  proclamation  by  the  Serjeant  that 
on  such  a  day  it  would  be  read  in  the  Guild  Hall  before  the 
mayor,  and  anyone  who  wished  to  contradict  it  must  then 
appear.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  3,  153,  189.)  In  the  earliest 
wills  no  mention  is  made  of  probate  before  the  ordinary ;  in  later 
registrations  it  is  recorded  that  the  will  had  received  episcopal 
probate  before  coming  before  the  mayor.  (Ibid.  155.)  The  cost 
of  this  was  what  the  people  desired  to  avoid. 

"  For  who  so  woll  prove  a  testament, 
That  is  not  all  worth  tenne  pound, 
He  shall  pay  for  the  parchment 
The  third  of  the  money  all  round ; " 

—Pol.  Poems  and  Songs,  ed.  Wright,  i.  323. 
VOL.   I  U 


290         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

their  profits,  fines,  and  forfeitures  should  go  to  enrich 
the  treasury  of  the  bishop  or  of  the  municipality. 
The  mayor  held  a  court  in  the  Guild  Hall  twice  a 
week,  and  had  jurisdiction  over  all  transgressions  and 
debts  arising  by  water  between  the  limits  of  S. 
Edmondness  and  Staple  Weyre,1  and  he  seems  now 
further  to  have  laid  claim  to  the  view  of  frankpledge 
and  the  criminal  jurisdiction  of  the  Leet  Court.  The 
bishop  answered  with  a  vigorous  retort.  In  1347 
he  assumed  the  view  of  frankpledge  of  the  men  of 
Lynn  and  tenements  formerly  held  by  the  corpora- 
tion, and  withdrew  or  threatened  to  withdraw  from 
the  burghers  the  right  of  electing  their  mayor.  On 
this  an  appeal  was  made  to  the  king,  who  sent  a  royal 
commission  to  enquire  into  the  dispute,  and  mean- 
while seized  with  his  own  hand  the  view  of  frank- 
pledge  and  the  lands,  giving  the  first  over  for  the 
time  to  the  sheriff  of  the  county  and  the  second  to 
the  king's  escheator.2  Possibly  there  was  some 
attempt  at  a  compromise,  but  the  new  charter  of 
1343  in  which  the  bishop  confirmed  the  liberties 
granted  by  his  predecessors,3  even  if  it  may  have 
allowed  the  mayor's -•election,  left  the  great  question 
of  the  courts  unsolved.  The  burghers  still  debated 
whether  the  town  officers  were  not  entitled  to  hold 
the  view  of  frankpledge,  and  the  husting  court,  and 
to  have  cognizance  of  pleas — in  fact  to  exercise  all 
the  more  important  rights  now  monopolized  by  the 
bishop  ;  and  insisted  on  the  election  of  their  own 


1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  3,  207. 

-  Ibid.  205.  s  Ibidi  189. 


ix  TOWNS  ON  CHURCH  ESTATES  291 

mayor.  It  was  in  vain  that  Edward  the  Third 
ordered  the  mayor  and  community  under  pain  of 
forfeiture  of  their  liberties  to  alter  their  demeanour 
and  not  cause  prejudice  and  damage  to  the  bishop  ; l 
and  the  whole  matter  was  at  last  brought  before  the 
King's  Court  in  1352,  when  the  judges  decided 
against  the  town  in  every  question  raised.  In  spite 
of  the  verdict,  however,  there  was  one  point  on 
which  the  people  refused  to  submit ;  and  the  bishop 
was  compelled  to  confirm  their  right  to  elect  yearly 
one  of  themselves  as  mayor,  though  he  enforced 
a  significant  confession  of  subjection  by  requiring 
that  the  mayor  should  immediately  after  the 
election  appear  before  himself  or  his  steward,  and 
swear  to  maintain  the  rights  of  the  church  of 
Norwich.2 

But  the  burghers  never  yielded  their  consent  to  the 
decision  of  the  King's  justices,  and  at  every  provoca- 
tion loudly  renewed  their  protest.  When  the  bishop 
visited  Lynn  in  1377,  he  demanded  that  in  recogni- 
tion of  his  supremacy  the  town  serjeant  should  carry 
before  him  the  wand  tipped  at  both  ends  with 
black  horn,  which  was  usually  borne  before  the 
mayor  himself.  For  their  part  they  were  heartily 
willing,  answered  the  courteous  mayor  and  aldermen, 
but  they  feared  that  at  such  a  flagrant  breach  of 
their  ancient  customs  and  liberties,  the  commons, 
"  always  inclinable  to  evil,"  would  certainly  fall  on 
the  bishop's  party  with  stones  and  drive  them  out 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Cora.  xi.  part  3,  188. 

2  Blomefield,  iii.  513.     Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  3,  189,  205. 

U   2 


292          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

of  the  town.  But  the  bishop  roughly  rebuked 
the  mayor  and  his  brethren  for  "  mecokes  and 
dastards,"  thus  fearing  the  vulgar  sort  of  people,  as 
if  it  mattered  to  him  what  the  common  folk  should 
say  ;  and  set  out  on  his  ride  with  the  rod  borne  before 
him.  He  rode  alone  with  his  followers,  however,  for 
no  burghers  would  accompany  him  ;  and  as  he  went  the 
whole  people  rose,  and  with  their  bows  and  clubs  and 
staves  and  stones  broke  up  the  brave  procession,  and 
put  the  bishop  and  his  men  to  flight,  carrying  off  many 
hurt  and  wounded.1  It  seems  possible  that  the  fray 
was  really  excited  by  the  astute  mayor  and  council  as 
a  means  of  making  a  final  breach  between  the  bishop 
and  the  common  people.  But  their  opponent  was 
too  strong  for  them.  The  bishop  carried  his  complaint 
to  the  King's  Council,  and  "  for  the  transgression 
clone  to  him  in  the  town  "  the  burgesses  barely  escaped 
punishment  by  spending  a  sum  equal  perhaps  to  two 
years  of  the  town  revenues  in  fines  and  gifts  to  the 
king,  his  mother,  and  others  who  had  "  laboured  for 
the  community  "  ;  besides  paying  £116  10s.  Od.  for  the 
expenses  of  the  mayor,  aldermen,  and  burgesses,  in 
going  to  London  on  the  business.2  Seventy  years 
later,  after  a  series  of  constitutional  troubles, 
the  old  quarrel  as  to  rights  of  jurisdiction  and  the 
use  of  the  symbols  of  supreme  authority  broke  out 
anew.  The  mayor  in  1447  got  a  grant  from  the  King 

1  Blomefield,  iii.  516-17. 

2  Hist.   MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  3,  222.     It  would  seem    that   in 
1377  the  mayor  and  burgesses   were  made   responsible  for  the 
custody  of  the  town,  and  were  ultimately  given  power  of  distress 
for  subsidies  for  its  defence.     (Ibid.  190,  205.) 


ix  TOWNS  ON  CHURCH  ESTATES  293 

allowing  a  sword  to  be  carried  before  him  l  with  the 
point  erect,  the  last  and  highest  emblem  of  absolute 
jurisdiction.  At  this  outrage  to  his  dignity  the 
bishop  interfered  promptly  and  resolutely,  and  the 
next  year  the  King  had  to  write  that  in  spite  of  his 
good  inclinations  he  must  remember  his  coronation 
oath  to  observe  the  rights  of  the  Church,  and  that 
the  mayor  must  henceforth  cease  from  having  any 
sword  or  mace  borne  before  him.  In  1461, 
however,  whether  the  town  had  got  a  new  grant 
from  Edward,  or  was  taking  advantage  of  troubled 
times  to  re-assert  its  claim,  the  common  accounts 
register  a  payment  of  4c/.  for  the  "  cleaning  of  the 
mayor's  sword,"  and  65.  8d.  for  "  crimson  velvet  for 
the  sword  and  for  making  it  up." 2  And  when  in  1462 
the  bishop  came  to  the  town  with  a  following  of  sixty 
armed  men,  and  ordered  the  gates  to  be  shut  after 
him,  the  attitude  of  the  people  was  not  to  be  mis- 
taken, "  the  mayor  and  all  the  commonalty  of  Lynn 
keeping  their  silence "  when  the  bishop  was  openly 
defied  in  the  streets  by  the  lord  of  Oxenford  with 
his  fellowship,  even  though  "  the  bishop  and  his 
squires  rebuked  the  mayor  of  Lynn,  and  said  he  had 
shamed  both  him  and  his  town  for  ever,  with  much 
other  language."  So  clear  was  the  state  of  things 
to  the  bishop's  sixty  men-at-arms  that  "  when  we 
met  there  bode  not  with  him  over  twelve  persons  at 
the  most  with  his  serjeant-at-arms,  which  serjeant 
was  fain  to  lay  down  his  mace ;  and  so  at  the  same 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  3,  165. 

2  Ibid.  225. 


294          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

gates  we  came  in  we  went  out,  and  no  blood  drawn, 
God  be  thanked."1 

The  incident  was  not  one  to  soften  passions  or 
conciliate  rivals ;  but  the  issue  of  the  strife  as 
compared  with  the  hostilities  in  the  last  century 
shows  how  the  balance  of  power  was  shifting.  The 
bishop's  resources  were  being  exhausted  faster  than 
his  pretensions ;  every  trader  in  Lynn  was  perpetu- 
ally reminded  that  in  Norwich,  only  fifty  miles  or 
so  distant,  the  citizens  had  held  their  own  borough 
court  since  1194,  and  the  higher  court  with  view  of 

7  O 

frankpledge  since  1223.  For  these  privileges  they 
themselves  had  waited  now  for  three  hundred  years, 
and  only  one  settlement  was  possible.  In  1473 
the  quarrel  as  to  the  view  of  frankpledge  was  still 
going  on,2  but  the  bishop  was  driven  at  last  to  a 
compromise  which  preserved  his  historic  claims  un- 
touched in  theory,  while  it  handed  over  the  real 
power  to  the  municipality.  For  the  sake  of  peace 
he  consented  in  1528  to  lease  to  the  mayor  and  bur- 
gesses the  yearly  Leet,  the  Steward's  Hall  Port, 
and  the  Tolbooth  Port ; 3  besides  various  dues  from 
fairs  and  markets,  with  waifs  and  strays,  and  some 
other  rights.  A  ruder  and  more  effective  close  was 
before  long  put  to  the  quarrel  by  the  sharp  methods 
of  the  Reformation,  when  Bishop's  Lynn  became 
finally  the  King's  Lynn. 

II.  If  boroughs  attached  to  a  bishopric  were  in  a 
difficult  position,  the  difficulty  was  vastly  increased 

1  Paston  Letters,  ii.  86-7. 

2  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  3,  205.  3  Ibid.  246. 


ix  TOWNS  ON  CHURCH  ESTATES  295 

in  the  case  of  those  subject  to  the  lordship  and  rule 
of  a  monastery.  Towns  owned  by  abbot  or  prior 
were  like  all  the  rest  stirred  by  the  general  zeal  for 
emancipation,  but  they  were  practically  cut  off  from 
any  hope  of  true  liberty.  The  power  with  which  they 
had  to  fight  was  invincible.  Against  the  little  lay 
corporation  was  set  a  great  ecclesiastical  corporation, 
wealthy,  influential,  united,  persistent,  immortal.  All 
the  elements  which  wrent  to  make  up  the  strength  of 
the  town  were  raised  in  the  convent  to  a  yet  higher 
degree  of  perfection,  and  the  struggle  was  prolonged, 
intense,  and  at  the  best  remained  a  drawn  battle, 
setting  nothing  beyond  dispute  save  the  animosity  of 
the  combatants.  Sometimes  the  defeat  of  the  borough 
in  the  fifteenth  century  was  as  complete  as  it  had 
been  two  hundred  years  before.  Cirencester  which 
had  won  extended  privileges  from  Henry  the  Fourth 
in  return  for  political  services  in  his  time  of  difficulty, 
was  utterly  beaten  at  last,1  and  fell  back  under  the 
control  of  the  Abbey  as  completely  as  St.  Alban's  had 
done  in  earlier  times.2  In  other  cases  the  resistance 


1  Proc.  Privy  Council,  i.  127.     Beecham's  Hist.  Cirencester, 
154-8. 

2  In   1333   St.    Alban's   brought   its   charter  to   the   King's 
Chancery  and  renounced  there  all  the  liberties  contained  in  the 
said  charter.     The  keeper  of  the  rolls  at  their  request  broke  off 
the  seal  of  wax,  and  cancelled  the  enrolment  in  the  Chancery 
rolls.     The  townsmen  also  brought  their  common  seal  of  silver, 
which  at  their  request  was  destroyed  and  the  silver  given  to 
the  shrine  of  St.  Alban.     (Madox,  140.)     Common  as  it  was  in 
France  for  a  commune  to  renounce  its  freedom,  there  is  scarcely 
any  instance  in  England  save  on  ecclesiastical  property.     The  case 
of  Dunwich  was  peculiar  and  I  have  met  with  no  other. 


296         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

was  more  energetic  and  sustained,   and  some  slight 
measure  of  success  was  its  reward.1 

As  in  the  case  of  towns  on  feudal  estates,  any 
borough  that  possessed  traditions  of  freedom  handed 
down  from  a  state  of  larger  liberties  might  have 
some  hope  of  ultimate  success,  but  otherwise  rebellion 
could  only  issue  in  defeat  so  final  and  decisive  as  to 
leave  no  further  room  for  argument.  Under  the  im- 
pulse of  the  popular  movement  which  seems  to  have 
agitated  many  towns  after  the  rising  that  took  place 
in  the  days  of  Simon  de  Montfort,  the  men  of  S. 
Edmundsbury  kept  up  for  about  seventy  years  a 
desperate  struggle  with  the  abbot  who  ruled  them. 
For  in  1264  it  happened  that  "the  younger  and  less 
discreet"  of  the  town  organized  a  conspiracy  under 
colour  of  a  Guild  called  "  the  Guild  of  Young  Men," 
and  despising  altogether  the  ancient  horn  of  the 
community  set  up  a  new  common  horn  of  their  own. 
Three  hundred  and  more  of  these  hopeful  conspirators, 
known  by  the  name  of  "  bachelors,"  having  bound 
themselves  to  obey  no  bailiff  save  the  aldermen  and 
bailiffs  of  their  own  Guild,  to  answer  to  the  sound 
of  their  new  common  horn  instead  of  the  old  moot 
horn,  and  to  count  all  who  did  not  join  them  as  public 


1  Occasionally  a  convent  drove  a  hard  bargain.  In  1440  an 
agreement  was  made  between  the  convent  of  Plimpton  and  the 
commonalty  of  Plymouth,  by  which  the  commonalty  was  to  pay 
£41  yearly,  and  if  this  rent  was  unpaid  fifteen  days  after  quarter 
day,  the  officers  of  the  convent  might  seize  all  the  goods  and  chat- 
tels of  the  mayor  and  commonalty  and  of  any  burgesses  and  of 
any  others  residing  and  abiding  there  which  could  be  found 
within  the  borough  and  the  precinct  thereof.  Madox,  222-3. 


ix  TOWNS  ON  CHURCH  ESTATES  297 

enemies,1  soon  found  themselves  engaged  in  riotings 
and  in  violently  resisting  the  abbot  from  behind 
closed  gates.  On  the  abbot's  appeal  to  the  Crown, 
however,  the  town  grew  frightened ;  the  Guild  was 
annihilated  by  the  help  of  the  more  prudent  sort,  and 
the  insurrection  suppressed. 

In  less  than  thirty  years,  however,  the  burghers 
were  renewing  the  memory  of  their  old  offences — 
forcing  townsmen  against  their  will  to  go  to  the  hall 
of  the  Guild,  and  take  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  it ; 
levying  tolls  and  taxes,  distraining  on  merchants  who 
sold  in  the  abbot's  market  to  extort  money  from 
them  ;  hindering  the  execution  of  justice  on  merchants 
suspected  of  selling  goods  outside  that  market ;  and 
refusing  to  allow  any  member  of  the  guild  to  bring 
a  plea  in  the  abbot's  court  against  any  other  brother 
of  the  guild :  while  the  abbot  on  his  side  asserted 
his  right  to  choose  the  alderman  of  the  town  and  to 
appoint  the  keepers  of  the  gates.  In  spite  of  a  com- 
promise made  before  the  king's  judges  sent  the  next 
year  to  enquire  into  the  case,  the  same  charges  were 
again  brought  against  the  men  of  Bury  before  a  royal 
commission  of  judges  in  1304.  The  accused  confessed 
that  the  abbot  was  lord  of  the  whole  town  and  its 
courts,  but  they  still  urged  a  claim  to  be  free  bur- 
gesses and  to  have  an  alderman,  and  a  Merchant 

1  The  organization  of  the  guild  does  not  seem  to  have  been  at 
all  of  a  democratic  or  "  advanced  "  kind,  but  after  the  pattern  of 
the  oligarchic  societies  of  the  time.  Four  men  owning  goods  to 
the  value  of  10  marks  were  elected  yearly,  by  a  committee  of 
twelve  burgesses,  to  hold  the  guild,  and  summoned  to  do  their 
duty  by  two  officers  of  the  guild  called  "  les  Dyes." 


298          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

Guild  with  certain  rights  of  justice  belonging  to  it 
and  with  an  elaborate  code  of  procedure,  and  asserted 
their  right  to  hold  meetings  for  the  common  profit 
of  the  burgesses,  and  to  levy  taxes  from  men  trading 
in  the  town.  All  this  the  abbot  denied,  whether  the 
right  to  a  Merchant  Guild,  or  pleas  belonging  to  it, 
or  a  community,  or  a  common  seal,  or  a  mayor ; 
according  to  him  the  townsfolk  only  had  a  right  to  a 
drinking  feast,  which  they  maliciously  turned  into  an 
illegal  convention,  and  if  they  took  any  fines  it  was 
against  the  merchant  law  and  the  King's  peace.  The 
case  was  given  for  the  abbot.  The  leaders  were  fined 
and  put  in  jail,  some  of  them  escaping  by  payments 
while  others  through  poverty  lay  in  prison  a  month. 

Once  more,  however,  the  burghers  took  heart,  and 
in  1327  broke  into  the  abbey  and  forced  the  abbot 
to  concede  to  them  a  community,  a  common  seal,  a 
Guild  merchant,  and  custody  of  their  gates,  with  other 
liberties.  But  their  triumph  was  short ;  utterly  de- 
feated by  the  forces  of  abbot  and  king,  they  were 
forced  in  the  concord  of  1332  to  renounce  for  ever 
the  claim  to  a  community ; l  and  when  after  the 
Peasant  Revolt  there  was  much  general  begging 
for  pardon,  the  men  of  S.  Edrnundsbury,  who  were 
ordered  to  sue  for  their  pardons  specially,  had  to 
find  surety  not  only  to  the  King  but  to  their  lord 
the  abbot.2 

If  S.  Edmundsbury  was  one  of  the  most  unfortunate 
ecclesiastical  towns  Reading  was  perhaps  the  most 

1  Gross,  ii.  29-36.     Yates'  Bury  S.  Edmunds,  123-135. 

2  Statutes,  6  Richard  II.,  2,  cap.  3. 


ix  TOWNS  ON  CHURCH  ESTATES  299 

fortunate.  For  Reading  was  originally  a  borough 
on  royal  demesne,  which  was  granted  by  Henry  the 
First  to  the  new  monastery  founded  by  him.1  From 
this  time  the  town  lay  absolutely  in  the  control  of  the 
abbot.  He  owned  all  its  streams,  from  which  the 
inhabitants  had  "  chiefly  their  water  to  brew,  bake, 
and  dress  their  meat." :  The  mills  were  in  his  hands  ; 
he  did  as  he  chose  with  the  market,  controlled 
the  trade,  and  had  the  entire  supervision  of  the 
cloth  manufacture.  He  appointed  the  Warden  of 
the  Guild  or  mayor,  and  the  various  town  officers ; 
and  claimed  a  decisive  voice  in  the  admitting  of  new 
burgesses  or  members  of  the  Guild,  while  from  every 
burgher's  son  who  entered  the  Guild  he  claimed  a 
tax  of  45.,  and  from  every  stranger  one-half  of  the 
fine  paid  as  entrance  fee — the  sum  of  the  fine  being 
fixed  in  presence  of  a  monk  who  might  raise 
objections  so  long  as  he  was  not  overborne  by  the 
joint  voices  of  six  legal  men  of  the  Guild.  Every 
burgher  in  the  Guild  had  further  to  pay  to  him  a 
yearly  tax  of  chepin  gavell  for  the  right  of  buying 
or  selling  in  the  town.3  For  any  breach  of  the  law 
fines  were  gathered  in  to  increase  his  hoard,  since  all 
the  administration  of  justice  lay  in  his  hands.  Before 
the  abbot  alone  the  emblems  of  supreme  authority 
might  be  borne,  and  the  mayor  when  he  went  in 

o  * 

state  was  only  allowed  to  have  two  tipped  staves 
carried  before  him  by  the  abbot's  bailiffs. 

From   the   time    of    Henry  the   Third   there  was 

1  Coates's  Reading,  49. 

2  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  7,  224.  3  Gross,  ii.  208. 


300         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

unceasing  war  between  the  townsmen  and  their 
lord.  Violent  dissensions  broke  out  in  1243,  when  the 
burghers  "  lay  in  wait  day  and  night  for  the  abbot's 
bailiffs,"  and  "  hindered  them  from  performing  their 
duties,"  till  order  was  restored  by  a  precept  from 
the  King.1  The  townsfolk  were  appeased  by 
the  grant  of  certain  trading  privileges ;  but  ten 
years  later  the  quarrel  broke  out  again.  The 
abbot,  as  they  maintained  before  the  King's  Court 
at  Westminster,  had  taken  away  their  Guild,  sum- 
moned them  to  another  place  than  their  own  Guild 
Hall  to  answer  pleas,  changed  the  site  of  their 
market,  and  forced  them  to  render  unwonted  services. 
An  agreement  was  drawn  up  before  the  judges,  by 
which  the  burghers  won  the  right  to  hold  their 
corn  market  in  its  accustomed  place,  to  own  their 
common  Guild  Hall,  with  a  few  tenements  that 
belonged  to  it,  and  a  field  called  Portmanbrok  (the 
rent  of  which  was  set  apart  for  the  salary  of  the 
mayor),  and  to  maintain  their  Guild  merchant  as  of 
old.  On  the  other  hand  the  townspeople  conceded  that 
it  was  the  abbot's  right  to  select  the  Warden  of  the 
Guild  from  among  the  guildsmen,  and  require  him 
to  take  oath  of  fidelity  to  himself  as  well  as  to  the 
burgesses.  The  abbot  might  tallage  the  town  at 
certain  times,  and  his  bailiffs  were  still  to  administer 
justice,  and  might  at  any  time  claim  the  keys  of  the 
Guild  Hall,  sit  there  to  hold  pleas,  carry  off  all 
profits  to  the  abbot's  treasury,  and  fine  the  burgesses 
any  sum  which  it  was  in  their  power  to  pay.  Finally 

1  Coates's  Reading,  49-50. 


ix  TOWNS  ON  CHURCH  ESTATES  301 

it  was  admitted  that  the  meadow  beyond  the  Port- 
manbrok  belonged  to  the  lord.1 

After  an  arrangement  which  left  to  the  abbot  all 
the  weighty  matters  of  government,  the  control  of 
the  burghers'  trade  and  a  charge  on  their  profits,2 
it  was  no  wonder  that  before  a  hundred  years  were 
over  the  inhabitants  of  Heading,  restless  and  dis- 
contented, were  again  battling  for  larger  privi- 
leges. In  1351  the  mayor  and  commonalty  refused 
obedience  to  a  constable  appointed  by  the  abbot's 
steward,  claiming  for  themselves  the  right  to  choose 
the  constables,  and  present  them  to  take  their 
oaths  before  the  king's  justices  and  the  justices  of 
the  peace  instead  of  before  the  abbot.  At  the  same 
time  they  raised  various  fundamental  questions 
as  to  their  rights,  just  as  Lynn  was  doing  almost 
in  the  very  same  year.  They  asked  whether  the 
town  was  not  a  royal  borough  and  therefore  in  no 
way  dependent  on  the  abbey  ;  whether  the  townsmen 
had  not  therefore  a  right  to  elect  their  own  mayor  ;  and 
whether  that  mayor  ought  not  to  exercise  jurisdiction 
over  the  burgesses  and  commonalty  "  according  to 
the  custom  of  the  borough  and  Guild  "  —questions 
which  one  and  all  afforded  fair  subjects  of  dispute 
for  the  next  hundred  and  fifty  years. 

1  Gross,  ii.  202-4. 

2  Some  of  the  fines  levied  were  doubtless  used  for  the  towns- 
men's benefit.  For  example,  there  were  nineteen  bridges  within  the 
limits  of  the  borough,  which  after  the  dissolution  of  the  monastery 
fell  into  decay  and  were  repaired  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth  with 
the  stones  from  the  abbey  walls.     (Coates's  Reading,  64.)     But 
material  advantages  did  not  take  the  place  of  political  freedom. 


302         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

The  burghers  henceforth  gave  the  abbot  no  rest. 
In  the  long  quarrel  the  Merchant  Guild  became  the 
real  centre  of  the  common  activity,  just  as  it  did 
wherever  a  town  subject  to  a  lord  temporal  or 
spiritual  failed  to  win  independent  jurisdiction  of  its 
own.1  For  if  there  were  free  boroughs  where  the 
mayor,  with  his  council  and  the  common  assembly  of 
the  burghers  in  which  the  whole  conduct  of  govern- 
ment was  centred,  were  in  name  and  fact  the  accepted 
constitutional  authorities ;  on  the  other  hand  in  de- 
pendent towns  where  political  freedom  was  still  in- 
complete the  Merchant  Guild  appears  as  ostensibly 
the  only  means  by  which  the  will  of  the  community 
could  find  expression ;  as  men  recognized  in  it 
the  one  society  in  whose  disciplined  ranks  they 
might  be  enrolled  to  fight  for  the  liberties  they 
claimed,  its  organization  \vas  held  to  be  the  most  im- 
portant of  their  privileges  and  the  truest  symbol  of 
their  common  life  ;  and  it  necessarily  became  the 
bond  of  fellowship,  the  pledge  of  future  freedom 
the  school  of  political  energies.2  In  such  towns 

1  Gross,  i.,  90-1.     The  number  of  burghers  in  the  Guild  seems 
to  have  been  very  small.     In    1486,   28   burghers   paid  chepin 
gavell ;  in   1487,  22  burgesses;  and  in  1490-93,   31   burgesses.. 
In    1510    there    were    45    burgesses.       (Coates's    Reading,    58.) 
There  were  many  who  paid  fines  and  dues  to  the  abbot  who  were 
of  the  town  and  not  of  the  Guild,  and  this  class  was  doubtless 
encouraged  by  the  convent,  following  the  same  policy  as  the  bishop 
in  Lynn.     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  7,  172,  175-6.) 

2  The  Guilds  were  naturally  looked  on  with  very  little  favour 
by  the  ecclesiastical  lords  in   such  cases.     There  was  a  conflict 
between  abbot  and  town  at  Malmesbury  in  the  time  of  Edward 
the  First.     The  burghers  claimed  to  have  a  Guild  of  their  own 


ix  TOWNS  ON  CHURCH  ESTATES  303 

therefore  the  Merchant  Guild  had  a  vitality  and  a 
persistent  continuity  of  life  which  was  unknown 
elsewhere,  and  was  often  preserved  in  full  vigour 
two  or  three  centuries  after  it  had  perhaps  suffered 
decay  or  transformation  elsewhere. 

This  was  the  case  in  Reading.  The  burghers  fell 
back  on  the  Guild  as  the  one  authorized  mode  of 
association  for  public  purposes,  and  in  its  "  morghe- 
speche,"  or  "morning  talks,"  the  leading  townsfolk 
discussed  how  the  independence  of  the  borough 
might  be  advanced.  Successive  mayors  of  the  Guild, 
though  still  to  all  appearance  appointed  as  officers  of 
the  abbot,  became  really  the  representatives  of  the 
town,  identified  themselves  absolutely  with  its  inter- 
ests, and  readily  led  their  fellow  citizens  in  revolt 
against  the  convent.  In  1378  the  burghers  paid  about 
£5  for  a  new  charter ;  and  twice  sent  the  mayor  to 
London  to  assert  their  privileges,  and  to  insist  that 
the  convent  should  be  forced  to  bear  a  just  share  of 
the  burden  of  taxation,  and  pay  a  part  of  the  tenth 
demanded  by  the  King.  The  messengers  were  lavish 
with  their  gifts  to  judges  and  officers  and  lawyers  who 
might  befriend  them,  eels  and  pike,  perches  and  salmon 
and  capons  ;  and  succeeded  so  well  that  the  town 
charters  were  confirmed  in  1400,  in  1418,and  in  1427.1 

people,  who  alone  had  a  right  to  trade  in  the  town,  and  to  take 
certain  taxes  for  the  support  of  the  Guild  from  all  traders  who 
were  not  of  it.  The  abbot  refused  to  allow  them  to  use  their 
rights.  The  town  fell  back  on  its  liberties  when  it  had  been  a 
royal  borough,  and  appealed  to  the  King.  (Gross,  ii.  173.)  See 
also  the  precautions  taken  by  the  Bishop  about  the  Guild  at 
Salisbury.  (Ibid.  209-10.)  J  Coates's  Reading,  53. 


304         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

In  1391  the  burghers  carried  the  dispute  about  the 
appointment  of  constables  to  the  king's  judges  at 
Westminster ;  and  seem  to  have  succeeded  in  this 
matter  too,  for  in  1417  the  mayor  elected  the  constables 
in  the  Guild  Hall,  and  the  justices  of  the  peace 
admitted  them  to  office.  About  1420  a  Guild  Hall 
was  built  close  to  the  Hallowed  Brook,  though  the 
burghers  complained  of  being  "  so  disturbed  with 
beating  of  battle-dores  "  by  the  women  washing  in 
the  brook  that  they  could  scarcely  hold  their  courts 
or  do  any  public  business.1  They  made  payments  for 
the  clock  house,  and  set  up  a  bell  for  the  community,2 
and  appointed  a  permanent  salary  for  the  mayor  of 
five  marks,  to  be  paid  from  the  Common  Chest 
instead  of  the  uncertain  rent  of  the  Portmanbrok. 
But  when  they  went  on  to  build  a  new  "  Out- 
butchery,"  and  buy  "  smiting  stocks  "  for  butchers  not 
living  in  the  town,  the  abbot  at  once  saw  an  attempt 
to  limit  his  own  market  profits  which  he  imme- 
diately resented,  denying  the  burghers'  right  to  hold 
their  new  out-butchery  or  receive  rents  from  it. 
They  on  their  side  protested  that  their  Guild  was 
a  body  corporate,  having  a  Common  Hall,  a  seal, 
and  the  right  of  possessing  common  property ;  that 
they  held  also  a  wharf,  a  common  beam  or  weighing- 
machine,  and  the  stocks  and  shambles  ;  that  they 
had  been  granted  freedom  from  toll  throughout 
the  kingdom  ;  that  they  returned  two  burgesses  to 
Parliament ;  and  were  freed  from  shire  and  hundred 

1  They  got  afterwards  from   Henry  the  Eighth  the  church  of 
the  Grey  Friars  for  their  Guild  Hall. 

2  Hist.MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  7,  172-3. 


li  TOWNS  OX  CHURCH  ESTATES  305 

courts  ;  and  finally  they  asserted,  to  sum  up  all  the 
rest,  that  they  had  held  of  the  King  long  before 
the  monastery  was  founded.1  In  1431  lawyers  were 
appointed  to  search  the  evidences  in  the  Common 
Chest  as  to  agreements  between  the  town  and  the 
abbot.  At  the  same  time  a  Register  of  the  Acts  of 
the  mayor  and  burgesses  was  begun,  and  continued 
year  after  j'ear  without  break.  In  1436  and  1439 
payments  were  made  for  the  writing  out  of  certain 
articles  as  to  the  privileges  of  the  town  ;  and  counsel 
were  again  employed  to  look  over  the  evidences  in 
1441.2 

Throughout  these  years  the  mayor  and  officers  were 
constantly  at  Maidenhead,  London,  or  Canterbury, 
holding  consultations  about  legal  business  with 
Lyttleton  and  the  most  famous  lawyers.  They  suc- 
ceeded in  buying  a  charter  for  their  Guild  Hall  with 
sums  contributed  by  rich  citizens  ;  and  gratefully 
adorned  the  building  with  a  picture  of  the  King.  The 
mayor  of  the  guild  became  more  and  more  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  burghers'  hopes,  and  his  greatness  the 
symbol  of  their  triumph.  They  had  not  only  raised 
his  salary  in  1459  to  ten  nobles,3  but  like  their 

1  Coates's  Reading,  53,  54.  All  this  time  matters  were 
made  easier  for  the  townspeople  by  constant  talk  of  loans  to  the 
King.  In  1420  the  town  officers  went  to  Walliiigford  to  discuss 
the  matter  with  the  King.  There  was  a  loan  made  in  1430,  and 
another  in  1445.  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  7,  173,  174. 

-  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  7,  174. 

3  Under  Henry  the  Eighth,  he  received  £10.  (Coates's 
Reading,  55,  56.)  A  woman  of  the  town  left  three  silver  cups 
and  one  gilt  cup  for  the  mayoralty  in  1479.  Public  dinners 
at  each  election  began  in  1492,  and  feasts  for  the  burgesses 

VOL   I.  x 


306          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

brethren  at  Lynn  they  got  permission  from  Henry 
the  Sixth  to  have  a  mace  carried  before  him  ;  and  in 
1459  the  mace  was  actually  bought.1  At  this  extra- 
vagance, however,  the  abbot  made  a  firm  stand,  and 
Henry  had  to  send  a  letter  to  the  Mayor  of  Reading, 
just  as  he  had  done  eleven  years  before  to  the  mayor 
of  Lynn,  ordering  that  this  privilege  should  remain 
with  the  abbot  alone  as  the  token  of  his  supremacy. 
But  the  mayor  possibly  gained  his  point  a  little 
later,  for  in  1487  he  was  allowed  two  Mace-serjeants, 
so  it  would  seem  that  at  least  his  tipped  staves  were 
now  borne  by  his  own  servants.2  He  secured  too  for 
himself  and  for  the  burgesses  exemption  from  serving 
on  juries;  and  in  the  same  year  assumed  supervision 
of  the  cloth  trade.  In  1480  the  burgesses  had  done 
away  with  individual  payments  of  the  "  chepin  gavell  " 
tax  to  the  abbot,  by  ordering  that  it  should  be 
given  from  the  Town  Chest ;  and  in  1486  a  citizen 
bequeathed  property  for  its  payment,  so  that  the 
townsmen  were  henceforth  freed  from  all  personal 
difficulties  in  this  matter.3 

Either  the  question  of  the  cloth-market  or  that  of 
the  mace-serjeants  brought  the  battle  to  a  climax. 
The  abbot  absolutely  refused  to  appoint  any  "  master 
of  the  guild,  otherwise  called  mayor,"  and  took  upon 
himself  to  admit  such  people  as  he  chose  to  the 
office  of  constable.4  The  guild  retorted  by  choosing  a 
mayor  for  themselves,  who  nominated  his  own  officers 
to  keep  order,  while  all  alike  in  this  emergency  gave 

at    Christmas    and    Shrovetide.     (Hist.   MSS.   Com.  xi.  part   7, 
180-1,  176.)  1  Ibid.  180.  2  Eng.  Guilds,  298. 

3  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  7,  175,  180.  4  Ibid.  212. 


ix  TOWNS  OX  CHURCH  ESTATES  307 

their  services  freely,  for  iii  1493  "  nothing  was  paid  to 
the  mayor,  because  neither  he  nor  any  one  else  charged 
anything  on  the  office."1  In  the  case  of  the  lesser 
offices  the  burghers  held  their  own,  and  when  in  1499 
the  abbot  appointed  two  constables,  the  mayor  thrust 
them  out  of  their  places.2 

But  the  triumph  of  the  people  was  short-lived, 
for  in  the  long  run  they  proved  powerless  against 
the  great  spiritual  corporation  which  ruled  over  them. 
In  the  very  next  year,  1500,  the  inhabitants  were 
utterly  defeated  as  to  the  election  of  the  mayor 
himself;  and  as  they  still  protested,  there  was  once 
more  an  appeal  eight  years  later  to  the  judgment  of 
the  King's  Court.  The  verdict  of  the  judges  threw 
back  the  whole  question  almost  to  the  very  point 
where  it  had  stood  centuries  before  at  the  time  of  the 
earlier  appeal  in  1254,  and  the  brethren  of  the  Guild 
were  declared  of  ancient  time  to  have  had  no  other 
right  than  the  power  to  present  from  among  them- 
selves three  persons,  of  whom  the  abbot  should 
choose  one  as  mayor.  The  two  constables,  and  the 
ten  vvardmen  of  the  five  wards,  might  be  elected  by 
the  mayor  and  commonalty,  but  they  must  be  sworn 
in  before  the  abbot.  According  to  ancient  custom  the 
name  of  any  proposed  burgess  must  be  given  to  the 
abbot  fourteen  days  before  his  election,  and  a  monk 
must  be  present  for  the  assessing  of  his  fine  of  forty 
shillings,  half  of  which  went  to  the  abbot ;  an  alien's 

o   ' 

fine  might  be  determined  by  six  burgesses,  and  if  they 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  7,  176. 
-  Coates's  Reading,  52,  53. 

x  2 


.308         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CH.  ix 

affirmed  on  oath  that  the  fine  was  reasonable  the 
abbot  was  bound  to  accept  it.  The  question  of  the 
out-butchery  still  remained  undecided ;  but  the  dis- 
pute as  to  the  cloth-trade  was  settled  by  a  compro- 
mise. As  in  the  case  of  the  mayor,  the  town  was  to 
choose  three  men  and  present  them  to  the  abbot, 
who  should  then  appoint  one  of  the  three  to  be  the 
keeper  of  the  seal  for  sealing  the  cloth.1 

So  closed  for  the  moment  the  long  struggle  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years — a  struggle  whose  gain  was 
.small  in  comparison  with  all  the  cost  and  labour, 
the  civic  enthusiasm,  the  learning  and  ability  which 
had  been  lavished  on  it.  The  easy  passage  to  freedom 
by  which  the  royal  towns  had  travelled,  the  large  and 
regular  expansion  of  their  liberties,  the  liberal  admis- 
sion of  their  right  to  supremacy  over  their  own  trade 
and  over  the  higher  matters  of  law  and  justice,  might 
well  kindle  in  the  subjects  of  abbey  and  priory  a 
perpetual  unrest,  and  anger  deepened  against  their 
masters  as  they  saw  themselves,  in  an  age  of  univer- 
sal movement,  bound  to  the  unchanging  order  of  the 
past,  and  condemned  to  perpetual  dependence  under 
a  galling  system  of  administration  which  the  secular 
government  had  abandoned  three  hundred  years 
before. 

1  Coates's  Reading,  54-5.     Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  7,  168-9. 


CHAPTER  X 

BATTLE  FOR   SUPREMACY 

WHEN  a  borough  had  won  from  its  lord  full  rights 
of  self-government,  its  battles  were  not  yet  over.  The 
next  effort  of  the  town  authorities  was  to  secure 
complete  power  over  all  the  inhabitants  within 
their  walls,  so  that  they  might  compel  all  alike  to 
submit  to  the  town  courts,  and  to  bear  their  share  of 
burdensome  duties,  such  as  the  payment  of  taxes,  the 
keeping  watch  and  ward,  the  defence  of  the  town,  the 
maintenance  of  its  trade,  or  the  enlargement  of  its 
liberties — in  fact  to  take  their  part  as  good  citizens 
in  all  that  concerned  the  common  weal. 

For  all  towns  alike,  whatever  were  their  chartered 
rights,  had  to  reckon  not  only  with  their  own  lord 
of  the  manor,  but  with  the  great  people,  whether 
king  or  noble  or  bishop  or  abbot,  or  perhaps  all 
of  them  together,  who  might  own  a  part  of  the  land 
within  their  walls,  and  might  all  assert  their  various 
and  conflicting  rights,  and  multiply  officials  of 
every  kind  with  courts  and  prisons  and  gallows, 
to  vindicate  the  lord's  authority.  Thus  in  Wai-wick 


310          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

ill  the  eleventh  century,  when  the  population  was 
scarcely  over  a  thousand,  the  King  held  a  hundred 
and  thirteen  houses,  and  various  lords  and  prelates 
owned  a  hundred  and  twelve,  while  there  were  nine- 
teen independent  burgesses  who  had  the  right  of  sac 
and  soc.  So  also  in  the  time  of  Edward  the  First 
there  were  five  gallows  in  Worcester  and  the  district 
immediately  round  the  city.  One  belonged  to  the 
town,  another  to  the  bishop,  and  a  third  to  the 
Earl  of  Gloucester,  while  two  more  were  set  up  by 
the  abbots  of  Pershore  and  Westminster  who  held 
property  in  the  borough  ;  all  of  which  lords  and 
prelates  had  the  right  of  hanging  thieves  and  rioters 
in  this  little  community  of  about  two  thousand  in- 
habitants,1 

A  new  municipality,  face  to  face  with  these  tra- 
ditional claims,  and  powerless  before  the  customary 
rights  of  property,  could  only  fall  back  on  friendly 
treaties  by  which  both  sides  might  win  advantage 
from  peaceable  compromise.  As  soon  as  the  burghers 
had  won  chartered  privileges  of  trade  and  freedom 
from  toll  throughout  the  kingdom,  they  had  some- 
thing to  offer  to  their  neighbours,  and  the  bargain- 
ing began.  They  could  propose  to  grant  protection 
and  a  share  in  their  privileges,  and  would  demand 
in  return  that  the  tenants  of  alien  lords  should 

1  Miller's  Parishes  of  Worcester,  vol.  I.  Rot.  Hun.,  p.  282,; 
3  Edward  I.  In  Canterbury  there  were  still  in  1835  not  less 
than  fifteen  precincts  within  the  limits  of  the  corporate  authority 
but  exempt  from  its  jurisdiction  (Rep.  on  Mun.  Corpor.,  31). 
For  crown  property  in  York  not  under  municipal  law,  see' 
Davies'  Walks  through  York,  27-28. 


x  BATTLE  FOR  SUPREMACY  311 

contribute  to  their  taxes  and  take  part  in  public 
duties,  and  perhaps  acknowledge,  in  some  respects  at 
all  events,  the  authority  of  their  courts.  But  the 
progress  of  the  negociations  and  their  final  result  un- 
derwent considerable  modifications,  according  as  the 
townspeople  had  to  deal  with  the  constable  of  the 
King's  castle  ;  with  some  lord  who  held  property  in 
the  borough ;  or  with  an  ecclesiastical  settlement,, 
whether  cathedral  or  monastery,  planted  within  the 
liberties. 

I.  The  Castle  Fee  was  a  bit  of  the  royal  territory 
altogether  independent  of  the  municipality.  In 
Bristol,  for  example,  the  castle  had  its  own  market 
at  its  gate ;  and  its  inhabitants  were  exempt  from 
the  town  justice,  so  that  if  one  of  the  tenants  of  the 
fee  committed  a  crime  he  was  sent  to  Gloucester 
thirty  miles  distant  instead  of  being  tried  in  Bristol 
itself.  Since  the  castle  fee  lay  outside  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  town,  its  ditches  became  the  refuge  of  felons 
and  malefactors  flying  from  the  bailiffs,  and  as  late  as 
1627  it  was  stated  that  two  hundred  poor  persons 
were  dwelling  within  the  precincts  who  mostly  lived 
by  begging,  besides  a  number  of  outlaws,  excom- 
municated people,  and  offenders  who  found  them  a 
hiding  place,  and  when  soldiers  and  sailors  were  im- 
pressed great  multitudes  of  able  men  "  fled  thither 
as  to  a  place  of  freedom,  where  malefactors  live  in 
a  lawless  manner."1  From  his  position  as  the  king's 
lieutenant  the  governor  or  Constable  of  the  Castle  in 
important  frontier  or  seaport  towns  was  a  very  great 
official,  with  an  authority  as  military  commander 

1   Ricart's  Kalenrlar,  117. 


312          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

which  gave  him  the  right  of  interference  in  local 
affairs,  and  whose  power  might  easily  prove  a  real 
danger  to  municipal  institutions.1  In  Bristol,  where 
the  mayors  after  their  election  "  did  fetch  and  take 
their  oath  and  charge  at  the  castle  gate "  from  the 
constable  as  the  representative  of  the  King,  he  was 
practically  the  official  arbiter  in  any  crisis  of  town 
politics,  and  when  a  revolt  of  the  commons  broke 
out  in  1312  against  a  handful  of  merchants  who 
controlled  the  municipal  government,  the  party  in 
power  at  once  claimed  the  constable's  help  against 
their  fellow-townsmen.  Thereupon  the  commons  as- 
saulted the  castle  and  built  forts  against  it,  so  that 
the  forces  of  three  counties  which  were  marched 
to  the  rescue  by  their  sheriffs  could  not  quell  the 
riot ;  but  the  castle  party  finally  triumphed,  the  in- 
surrection was  violently  put  down,  twelve  burgesses 
banished,  the  rule  of  those  who  had  usurped  privi- 
leges claimed  by  the  whole  commonalty  confirmed, 
and  the  enemy  of  the  Bristol  burghers,  Lord  Maurice 
of  Berkeley,  appointed  by  the  King  "  custos  of  the 
castle  and  town." 

It  was  only  however  in  a  few  boroughs  that  excep- 
tional military  difficulties  made  the  post  of  governor 
one  of  great  or  permanent  authority,  as  for  instance  in 
Bristol  or  Southampton.  And  even  in  these  towns  a 
good  understanding  was  before  long  established  be- 
tween king  and  burghers,  and  powers  exercised  by 

1  In  1285  the  Bristol  charter  was  forfeited  because  of  en- 
croachments on  the  rights  of  the  constable  of  the  castle.  Beyer's 
Bristol,  ii.  74. 

-'  Beyer's  Bristol,  ii.  88-100. 


x  BATTLE  FOR  SUPREMACY  313 

» 

royal  officers  which  impeded  the  free  developement 
of  municipal  life  were  withdrawn  without  jealous 
alarms  on  the  sovereign's  side,  or  prolonged  agita- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  town.  The  Bristol  mayors 
were  freed  by  royal  charter  from  the  necessity  of 
taking  their  oath  from  the  constable  in  1345.  And  in 
towns  such  as  Norwich,  where  military  considerations 
early  became  of  comparatively  little  importance,  the 
castle  tenants  were  made  to  contribute  to  the  city 
taxes  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  in  the  course 
of  the  next  hundred  years,  were  put  unreservedly 
under  the  control  of  the  city  authorities.1 

II.  There  wrere  not  very  many  cases  where  a  lay 
lord  became  a  formidable  enemy  to  municipal  free- 
dom, either  from  the  extent  of  his  property  in  a  town, 
or  from  his  power  of  enforcing  his  claims.  Such 
disputes  as  did  arise  were  settled  in  various  ways  by 
purchase  or  friendly  compact,  or  by  gaining  from 
the  Crown  a  charter  which  conferred  such  rights 
of  control  as  were  necessary  for  discipline  and  order. 
Boroughs  on  the  royal  demesne  naturally  found  them- 
selves supported  by  the  King  in  urging  these  demands, 
but  the  appeal  to  force  always  lay  behind  the  legal 
settlement,  and  there  was  occasionally  a  serious  battle 
before  the  question  of  supremacy  was  finally  decided. 
A  bitter  fight  was  waged  between  Bristol 2  and  the 

1  Norwich  Doc.,  Stanley  v.  Mayor,  &c.,  25.     Here  the  fee  \vas 
given  to  the  citizens  as  early  as  1346. 

2  There  were  also  occasional   difficulties  as  to  the  jurisdiction 
of  Bristol  over  the  Temple  fee, which  first  belonged  to  the  Templai>, 
then  to  the  Knights  of  St.   John  of  Jerusalem,  and  was  not 
finally  incorporated  with  the  city  till  1543.     (Seyer's  Bristol, 
i.  134-6.) 


314          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

lords  of  Berkeley,  who  owned  Redcliffe,  and  claimed 
the  river  where  they  had  built  a  quay  as  part  of  their 
lordship ;  who  had  their  own  courts  and  their  own 
prison ;  who  held  their  own  markets  and  fair ;  and 
who  broke  the  Bristol  weights  and  measures,  and  re- 
fused to  take  the  measures  of  assize  from  the  mayor 
even  though  in  such  matters  he  acted  as  the  King's 
marshal.  They  fought  long  and  fiercely  for  their 
power,  even  after  a  royal  charter  in  1240  had  given 
the  jurisdiction  over  Redcliffe  to  the  mayor.1  In  1305 
an  energetic  young  lord  Maurice  of  Berkeley  to 
whom  his  father  had  given  Redcliffe  Street  tried  to 
assert  his  rights,  but  at  the  ringing  of  the  common 
bell  the  Bristol  men  assembled,  broke  into  Maurice's 
house,  took  away  a  prisoner  from  him,  and  refused 
to  allow  him  to  hold  any  court,  or  to  buy  and  sell 
any  wares  in  Redcliffe  Street.  Upon  this  the  young 
lord,  appearing  with  "great  multitudes  of  horse  and 
foot,"  forced  the  burgesses  to  do  suit  to  him,  and 
cast  those  who  refused  into  a  pit,  while  the  women 
who  came  to  help  their  husbands  in  the  fray  were 
trodden  under  foot.  He  set  free  prisoners  from  the 
Bristol  gaol,  assaulted  Bristol  burgesses  at  Tetbury 
fair,  claimed  dominion  over  the  Severn,  and  seized 
the  Bristol  ships.  All  this  did  Maurice,  "  than  whom 
a  more  martial  knight,  and  of  a  more  daring  spirit, 
of  the  age  of  twenty-four  years,  the  kingdom  nor 

1  In  1240  the  inhabitants  of  Redcliffe  were  combined  and 
incorporated  with  the  town  of  Bristol ;  and  the  ground  of  S. 
Austin's  by  the  river  was  granted  to  the  commonalty  by  the 
abbot  for  certain  money  paid  by  the  said  commonalty.  Ricart, 


x  BATTLE  FOR  SUPREMACY  315 

scarce  the  Christian  world  then  had ; "  and  the 
mayor  and  burgesses  left  King  and  Parliament  no 
rest  with  their  petitions,  telling  of  outrage  after 
outrage  committed  by  him,  till  commissioners  were 
appointed  to  examine  their  complaints,  and  to  Lord 
Maurice  the  sequel  of  this  angry  business  was  a 
fine  of  1,000  marks,  afterwards  commuted  to  service 
with  the  King's  army  with  ten  horsemen.  A  few 
years  later  moreover  the  Bristol  men  found  oppor- 
tunity to  avenge  their  bitter  grudge,  for  when  he 
was  taken  in  rebellion  the  mayor  and  the  commonalty, 
"  out  of  an  inveterate  hatred  and  remembrance  of 
former  passages,"  threw  into  the  common  gaol  every 
man  who  was  even  suspected  of  having  adhered  to 
the  faction  of  Maurice.1  Troubles  again  broke  out 
in  1331,  and  the  mayor  and  burgesses  gathered  at 
the  ringing  of  the  common  bell  for  an  assault  on  a 
Lord  Thomas  of  Berkeley,  destroyed  his  tumbrill 
and  pillory,  carried  his  bailiff  to  the  Guild  Hall, 
and  forced  him  to  swear  that  he  would  never  again 
execute  any  judgements  in  the  courts.  The  next 
year  however  the  town,  "  taking  the  advantage  of 
the  time  while  the  said  lord  was  in  trouble  about 
the  murder  of  King  Edward  the  Second  in  his  castle 
of  Berkeley,"  settled  the  matter  for  ever  by  an  oppor- 
tune payment  to  the  King  of  £40,  for  which  the 
mayor  and  burgesses  obtained  a  confirmation  of  all 
their  charters,  and  especially  that  which  granted 
that  Redcliffe  Street  should  be  within  their  jurisdic- 
tion. 

No   sooner  was  the    dispute   finally   decided  than 
1  Lives  of  the  Berkeley*,  i.  177,  196-201. 


31 C.          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

rancour  quickly  died  away,  and  the  burgesses  of 
Bristol  settled  down  into  the  most  friendly  relations 
with  Berkeley  castle.  The  lords  of  Berkeley  took  to 
trading  in  wool  and  corn  and  wine,  and  went  partners 
with  Bristol  men  in  robbing  carracks  of  Genoa  as  well 
as  in  lawful  traffic.1  So  far  had  the  wrheel  of  fortune 
turned  that  one  of  the  lords  who  made  a  treaty  of 
peace  with  the  Earl  and  Countess  of  Shrewsbury 
meekly  appeared  before  the  mayor  and  council  of 
Bristol  to  give  surety ; 2  and  when  he  went  out  to 
fight  at  Nibley  the  Bristol  merchants  sent  men  to 
his  help.3  The  alliance  was  cemented  by  marriage 
when  a  Berkeley  in  1475  took  to  wife  a  daughter  of 
the  mayor  of  Bristol ; 4  and  when  she  died  in  1517  the 
mayor,  the  master  of  the  Guild,  the  aldermen,  sheriffs, 
chamberlains,  and  wardens  of  Bristol,  and  thirty-three 
crafts,  followed  the  coffin  with  two  hundred  torches — 
altogether  a  multitude  of  five  or  six  thousand  people. 
A  "  drinking  "  was  made  by  the  family  for  the  mayor 
and  his  brethren  in  St.  Mary's  Hall,  at  which  they 
were  entertained  with  a  first  course  of  cakes,  comfits, 


1  They  took  to  trading  about  1367.  Berkeleys,  i.  365-6. 
Ibid.  i.  23.  Thomas  Berkeley  got  leave  from  Henry  the  Sixth 
"  for  three  of  his  factors  to  go  with  the  ship  called  the  Cristopher 
with  any  lawful  merchandise,  and  to  sell  the  same  and  return  and 
go  again.  And  the  year  before,  this  Thomas  and  two  of  his  partners 
had  the  like  licence  to  go  with  their  ship  called  the  Trinity  of 
Berkeley,  to  Bordeaux,  and  there  to  unload  and  load  again,  and 
bring  any  merchandise  into  England."  Ibid.  ii.  83,  136. 

-  Ibid.  ii.  68.  3  Ibid.  ii.  113-4. 

4  The  new  marquis  was  very  angry  at  the  unworthiness  of  such 
a  match  with  so  mean  blood,  and  made  it  an  excuse  for  disinherit- 
ing him.  Ibid.  ii.  172,  173. 


x  BATTLE  FOR  SUPREMACY  317 

and  ale,  followed  by  another  of  marmalade,  siioket, 
red  wine,  and  claret,  and  a  third  of  wafers  and  blanch 
powder,  with  romney  and  muscatel ;  "  and  I  thank 
God,"  wrote  the  steward,  "  no  plate  nor  spoons  was 
lost,  yet  there  was  twenty  dozen  spoons." l 

III.  Ecclesiastical  corporations  also  nominally  held 
their  property  in  the  various  towns  by  the  usual 
feudal  tenure,  just  like  the  lay  lords ;  and  when  a 
borough  formally  stated  its  theoretic  relations  with 
them  both  lay  and  spiritual  lords  were  put  on  exactly 
the  same  level.  The  "  Customs  "  of  Hereford  show  us 
the  ideal  view  of  these  relations  as  the  burghers  liked 
to  picture  them.  "  Fees  "  within  the  walls 2  were  held 
by  both  ecclesiastical  and  lay  lords,  whose  tenants 
desired  a  share  in  the  city  privileges,  and  the  Hereford 
men  classed  them  all  together  under  a  common  de- 
scription. "  There  are  some  lords  and  their  tenants 
who  are  dwellers  and  holders  of  lands  and  tenements 
within  the  said  bounds,  which  they  hold  by  a  certain 
service  which  is  called  '  liberum  feodum ' ;  because 
long  ago  they  besought  us  that  they  might  be  of  us, 
and  they  would  be  rated  and  taxed  with  us,  and  they 
are  free  among  us  concerning  toll  and  all  other 
customs  and  services  by  us  made,  but  concerning 
their  foreign  services  which  they  do,  or  ought  to  do, 
and  of  old  have  done,  their  lords  are  not  excluded 
by  us  nor  by  our  liberties ;  for  we  never  use  to 
intermix  ourselves  with  them  in  any  things  touching 
those  tenures,  but  only  with  those  which  concern  us, 
or  their  tenures  which  for  a  time  hath  been  of 

1  Berkeleys,  ii.  175,  176. 

-  Journ.  Arch.  Ass.  xxvii.  461. 


318          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

our  condition." l  Tenants  still  bound  to  render 
feudal  services  to  their  lords  were  not  reckoned 
among  the  true  aristocracy  of  the  freemen,  who  in 
admitting  them  to  a  limited  fellowship  marked  their 
sense  of  the  difference  of  status  between  the  free 
burgher  and  the  man  who  was  but  half  emancipated ; 
"  and  such  men  ought  not  to  be  called  citizens  or 
our  fellow  citizens  ....  because  they  are  '  natives/ 
or  born  in  the  behalf  of  their  lords,  and  do  hold 
their  tenements  by  foreign  services  and  are  not  bur- 
gesses." It  was  only  when  a  tenant  bought  a  house 
in  the  city  and  was  in  scot  and  lot  with  the  citizens, 
that  they  allowed  that  he  "  is  free  and  of  our  condi- 
tion ;  but  let  him  take  heed  to  hftnself  that  he 
depart  not  from  the  city  to  any  place  into  the 
power  of  his  lord." 

But  the  municipality  was  perfectly  firm  in  the 
assertion  of  the  authority  which  it  had  a  right  to 
exercise  over  all  those  who  were  admitted  to  the 
privileges  of  the  common  trade,  and  took  a  very  de- 
cided tone  with  the  spiritual  as  well  as  with  the 
lay  lords.  To  the  Hereford  burghers  it  was  obvious 
that  the  ecclesiastical  tenants  only  enjoyed  a  share 
in  the  town  liberties  by  the  grace  of  the  citizens, 
and  in  virtue  of  "  a  composition  betwixt  us  and 
them,  which  we  for  reverence  to  God  and  to  the 
Church  our  mother  had  granted  the  same  unto 
them ;  and  also  for  divers  alms  to  be  given  to 
our  citizens  and  other  poor  and  impotent  of  our  city 
in  an  almshouse  by  the  keeper  of  the  same  for  ever. 
And  it  was  not  our  intentions  that  these  men,  the 

1  Journ.  Arch.  Ass.  xxvii.  480.  2  Ibid.  481. 


x  BATTLE  FOR  SUPREMACY'  319 

tenants  of  the  bishop,  dean,  and  chapter  should  have 
nor  enjoy  our  laws  and  customs,  unless  after  the 
same  manner  as  we  enjoy  them  "•  —that  is,  as  they 
went  on  carefully  to  explain,  every  one  must 
acknowledge  law  as  well  as  privilege,  and  be  subject 
like  the  citizens  to  authority.  They  were  all  to  be 
obedient  to  the  Bailiff  for  the  execution  of  the  Kind's 

o 

writs ;  nor  could  they  claim  any  immunities  or  in- 
dependent jurisdiction  in  the  King's  highway,  seeing 
that  all  offenders  taken  there  were  to  be  judged  by 
the  city  Bailiff.  If  the  peace  or  the  tranquillity  of 
Hereford  was  disturbed  by  the  tenants  of  any  fee, 
the  city  Bailiff,  "  taking  with  him  the  bailiff  of  that 
fee  and  twelve  of  the  most  discreetest  and  stoutest 
men  of  the  whole  city,"  might  "  by  all  way  of  rigour  " 
compel  the  offenders  to  come  before  them,  and  force 
them  to  end  their  discords  and  make  amends  ;  if  they 
refused,  the  whole  community  "  shall  account  and 
hold  them  as  rebels  ;  and  that  they  come  not  among 
them  in  their  congregations."  All  bailiffs,  whether 
of  Church  estates  or  others,  were  bound  to  help  the 
chief  Bailiff  of  the  city  in  apprehending  thieves  and 
malefactors  and  keeping  order.  A  vagabond,  even  if 
he  were  an  ecclesiastical  tenant,  who  made  a  noise  at 
night  "  to  the  terror  of  his  fellow-citizens,"  might  be 
taken  up  by  any  inhabitant  and  brought  to  the  city 
jail  till  one  o'clock  the  next  day ;  when,  in  polite  re- 
cognition of  the  lower  jurisdictions,  he  was  solemnly 
handed  over  in  a  public  place  to  the  bailiff  of  his 
own  fee,  by  him  to  be  kept  in  prison  for  a  day 
and  a  night,  and  then  returned  to  the  city 

1  Journ.  Arch.  Ass.  xxvii.  467. 


320         TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CHAP. 

prison,  "  there  to  stay  until  he  hath  made  amends 
as  the  Bailiff  and  commonalty  shall  think  fit."  The 
tenants  of  the  various  fees  were  allowed  to  plead  in 
the  town  courts  at  their  pleasure,  a  privilege  not 
granted  to  aliens  ;  and  in  matters  touching  frank- 
pledge,  or  anything  "  which  could  not  be  amended 
in  the  courts  of  those  lords,"  the  city  claimed  rights 
of  arbitration,  and  power  to  determine  such  cases 
' '  according  to  the  laws  of  the  city  and  not  according 
to  the  customs,  unless  it  be  by  special  favour  of  the 
commonalty."  All  questions  concerning '-lands  and 
tenements  in  the  city  were  to  be  decided  by  the  free 
citizens  only  ;  and  if  ecclesiastical  tenants  refused  to 
submit  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  city  magistrates  and 
absented  themselves  from  the  court,  "  then  our  chief 
Bailiff,  calling  unto  him  six  or  more  witnesses  of  his 
citizens,  shall  go  to  the  cathedral  church,  and  there 
before  the  chapter  shall  notify  or  declare  the  dis- 
obedience of  their  bailiffs  and  of  their  tenants."  If 
the  canons  would  not  assist  or  aoree,  the  Bailiff 

o  ' 

should  announce  that  he  must  then  proceed  himself 
to  administer  full  justice,  though  "  by  his  will  or 
knowledge  he  would  not  hurt  the  liberties  of  their 
mother  the  Church."  This  concession  to  ecclesiastical 
sensibilities  was  apparently  looked  on  by  the  men  of 
Hereford  as  a  proof  of  fine  magnanimity.  "And  it 
was  not  wont  so  to  be  done,  but  that  there  was  a 
composition  had  between  us,  which  we  for  the 
reverence  of  God  and  the  tranquillity  of  their  tenants 
and  our  citizens,  had  granted  unto  them." 

All  this  story,  however,  comes  to  us  from  the  side 

«/   ' 

1   Journ.  Arch.  Ass.  xxvii.  480. 


x  BATTLE  FOR  SUPREMACY  321 

of  the  town,  and  has  something  of  the  ring  of  a 
lordly  municipal  pride  ;  it  almost  sounds  like  an  ideal 
view  of  the  compromise  between  the  contracting 
powers  as  conceived  by  the  burghers,  and  one  to 
which  the  Church  party  must  have  demurred.  At 
any  rate  by  whatever  means  the  municipality  of 
Hereford  had  won  a  jurisdiction  of  this  sort  over  the 
bishop's  tenants,  it  was  singular  in  the  possession  of 
such  authority,  which  has  no  parallel  in  towns  like 
Canterbury,  York, Lincoln, Norwich,  Exeter,  and  many 
more.  But  the  situation,  even  as  the  citizens  put  it, 
is  so  complicated  in  its  arrangements  that  we  could 
scarcely  wonder  if  a  state  of  truce  depending  on 
provisions  so  elaborate  should  under  provocation  be 
transformed  into  a  state  of  open  war;  nor  can  we 
question  the  wisdom  of  townspeople  everywhere  in 
making  it  their  fixed  purpose  to  establish  one  un- 
divided and  supreme  law  for  the  government  of  each 
community.  How  important  the  question  at  issue 
really  was  to  the  town's  life  we  may  see  from  the 
story  of  Winchester. 

The  mayor  of  Winchester  was  at  the  head  of  what 
seems,  on  paper  at  least,  a  powerful  and  elaborate 
corporation,  worthy  of  a  great  city  which  held  itself 
to  have  been  built  "  in  the  age  of  the  world  2995, 
ninety-nine  years  before  the  building  of  Home,"  and 
"  environed  with  stone  walls  "  exactly  533  years  later.1 
A  common  assembly  met  twice  a  year.  There  were  two 
coroners  and  two  constables,  six  aldermen  of  the  wards 
with  their  six  beadles,  a  town  clerk  and  four  Serjeants, 
a  council  of  twenty-four  elected  every  year,  and 
1  Gross,  ii.  265. 

VOL.    I  Y 


322          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAR 

four  auditors  of  this  council,  besides  a  body  of  twelve 
jurors  chosen  whenever  there  was  necessity,  who  sat 
at  "  the  Pavilion,"  and  with  whom  the  mayor  peram- 
bulated the  liberties  to  view  the  rivulets  and  rivers.1 
The  boundaries  of  the  city  were  apparently  marked 
out  by  a  rough  square  formed  by  the  walls  and  ditch  ; 
but  to  the  mayor  and  aldermen  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  the  idea  that  their  authority  should  reach 
as  far  as  the  limits  allowed  by  the  girth  of  the  walls 
would  have  seemed  a  far-off  counsel  of  perfection. 

For  right  across  the  city  from  the  east  to  the  west 
gates  stretched  the  High  Street,  cutting  the  town  into 
two  equal  halves  ;  and  to  the  south  of  the  High  Street 
one  may  say  roughly  that  the  mayor  had  no  authority 
at  all.  Near  the  west  gate  stood  the  King's  castle, 
where  municipal  law  of  course  did  not  run.  Beside 
the  castle  lay  the  great  convent  of  S.  Swithun, 
and  next  to  it  the  cathedral,  both  fenced  round  by  a 
wall  which  shut  out  all  lay  jurisdiction  or  intrusion  of 
any  kind.  Nearer  to  the  east  gate  lay  the  palace  of 
the  bishop,  who  was  also  of  course  exempt  from  secular 
interference,  and  who  ruled  with  supreme  authority 
over  the  bishop's  Soke  that  stretched  away  beyond 
the  gate,  and  took  tolls  of  all  merchandise  that  passed 
along  the  river.2  His  tenants  while  remaining 
outside  municipal  control  had  still  the  right  to  buy 
and  sell  all  kinds  of  merchandize  in  the  city  which 
according  to  the  burghers'  complaint  was  to  their  hurt 
and  loss  ;  and  the  exceeding  difficulty  of  any  regula- 

1  Hist,  MSB.  Com.  vi.  601.     Gross,  ii.  254. 

2  The  bailiff  of  the  Soke  was  sometimes  called  the  Mayor  of 
the  Sake  to  emphasize  his  independence. 


*  BATTLE  FOR  SUPREMACY  323 

tion  of  trade  in  the  midst  of  this  competition  of  privi- 
leged workers,  with  the  ruin  of  the  city  treasury  which 
it  threatened,  are  shown  by  a  quarrel  between  the 
bishop  and  the  burghers  as  to  a  street  which  the  bishop 
had  claimed  as  his  property  in  1275  ;  for  when  people 
discovered  that  in  that  liberty  so  appropriated  they 
paid  nothing,  since  the  city  bailiff  could  not  enter  it 
to  make  distraint,  nearly  all  the  clothworkers  forth- 
with withdrew  themselves  from  the  other  streets  and 
went  to  live  there  to  the  manifest  loss  of  the  com- 
munity, and  the  great  profit  of  the  bishop.1 

The  northern  part  of  the  town  was  more  than  half 
given  up  to  fields  and  gardens,  the  shops  and  houses 
of  traders  and  artizans  forming  but  a  narrow  settle- 
ment that  gathered  closely  along  the  central  street 
and  the  lanes  that  opened  from  it.  And  even  of 
this  district  a  part  was  wholly  withdrawn  from  the 
city  jurisdiction.  The  Queens,  whose  "  morning  gift  " 
Winchester  was,  lived  "tax  free  "  in  the  Queen's  House 
opposite  the  King's  palace  near  the  west  gate,  and 
took  rent  and  tolls  from  the  row  of  Queen's  stalls  on 
the  High  Street.  At  the  east  gate  was  another  belt 
of  ecclesiastical  property — the  settlements  of  the 
Franciscans  and  Dominicans, — and  next  to  them  a 
group  of  poor  houses  depending  on  S.  Swithun's.2 

1  Gross,  ii.  254.     For  the  way  in  which  a  bit  of  the  town  under 
ecclesiastical  and  not  under  municipal  control  might  serve  as  a 
sort  of  sanctuary  against  the  tax  gatherers,  see  the  complaint  of 
the  Bristol   commonalty  about   Temple   Street.      (Rot.  Parl.  i. 
434.) 

2  They    had   once   been    occupied   by   "  good   citizens,"    but 
all  through  the  Middle  Ages  were  filled  by  a  very  poor  popula- 
tion.    (Kitchin's  Winchester,  75.) 

Y    2 


324          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

Eight  in  the  middle  of  the  town,  opposite  the  Guild 
Hall  in  the  High  Street,  was  the  liberty  of  "  Godbeate" 
belonging  to  S.  Swithun's,  where  the  writ  of  the  King 
or  the  authority  of  the  city  had  no  power ;  and  whose 
church  formed  a  sanctuary  always  open-  for  ill-doers 
flying  from  municipal  justice.  The  very  curfew-bell 
which  hung  in  its  tower  rang  out  from  land  that  defied 
the  mayor's  authority.1 

Winchester  had  not  even  control  of  its  own  gates. 
The  bishop  had  charge  of  one  ;  and  two  were  in  the 
hands  of  the  convent,  which  in  times  of  civil  war 
could  freely  admit  within  the  city  walls  the  armies 
of  the  side  opposed  to  the  townsfolk.2  Even  the 
commerce  of  the  place  was  taken  out  of  the  bursrhers 

J-  O 

hands.  Not  only  did  the  bishop  take  tolls  of  the 
river  traffic,  but  once  a  year  when  the  great  fair  of 
S.  Giles'  took  place  he  assumed  supreme  command 
in  Winchester ;  for  the  time  all  civic  government  was 
altogether  suspended  ;  the  bishop  closed  all  shops  in 
and  round  the  town ;  traders  coming  with  their  cloth 
and  woollen  goods,  their  wines,  their  pottery,  their 
brass-work,  or  their  eastern  spices,  were  subject  to  his 
jurisdiction,  and  handed  over  to  him  the  biggest  share 
of  the  profits,  which  he  divided  with  the  various 
religious  establishments  in  the  city.3  At  other  times 

1  Kitcliin's  Winchester,  46-7,  75-7. 

2  In  1264  there  was  a  violent  fray  near  the  King's  Gate,  the 
citizens  fighting  to  keep  the  monks  from  admitting  the  followers 
of  De  Montfort.     (Ibid.   130.)     The  convent  kept  control  of  the 
King's  Gate  till  1520.     (Ibid.  132.) 

3  For    the    bishop's  rights  during   the  fair  such  as  tronage, 
authority  to  take  all  weights  and  measures  and  bear  them  to  the 
Pavilion  and  there  make  assay,  to  demand  that  the  people  of 


x  BATTLE  FOR  SUPREMACY  325 

the  King's  chamberlains  and  the  King's  clerk  of  the 
market  regulated  business  in  their  master's  interest, 
and  collected  the  dues  of  the  market  and  tolls  on 
every  load  carried  by  man  or  horse  into  the  town.1 

Winchester  suffered  also  from  the  memory  of  its 
ancient  state  as  the  capital  and  residence  of  the  West 
Saxon  Kings ;  and  its  mayor  almost  alone  among 
the  mayors  of  English  towns  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury had  to  go  to  London  to  take  his  oath  of 
office  from  the  King's  judges,2  just  as  the  mayor  of 
London  does  to  this  day.  He  could  win  neither  free- 
dom nor  independence.  At  home  he  was  beset  with 
dangers;  he  might  be  imprisoned  by  the  King  for 
one  offence,  and  punished  by  the  bishop  for  another.3 

the  city  should  come  to  the  Pavilion  to  present  cry  raised  and  blood- 
shed, and  other  things  touching  the  peace  of  our  Lord  the  King, 
see  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  vi.  595-605.  Compare  his  powers  in 
Southampton  during  the  same  fair.  There  he  might  send  his 
bailiff  to  see  that  only  food  was  weighed  or  sold  in  the  town, 
that  no  merchant  whether  resident  or  not  ventured  to  sell 
anything  except  food,  that  there  was  no  weighing  or  measur- 
ing, that  merchants  who  came  with  their  goods  swore  they  did 
not  bring  them  to  sell  at  this  time.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi. 
part  3,  pp.  67,  68.)  The  convent  also  had  its  own  home  and 
foreign  trade  on  a  very  large  scale.  (Kitchin's  Winchester,  161.) 

1  English  Guilds,  353,  &c.  358.    (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  vi.  495-605.) 

2  This  custom,  once  common  (Madox,  152-3),  was  abandoned 
in  Ipswich  as  early  as  1317,  and  seems  to  have  generally  died  out 
in  the  fourteenth  century,  though  Gloucester  sent  its  bailiffs  to 
Westminster  till  1483. 

3  In  1244  a  mayor  who  had   obeyed  the  King's  orders  to  shut 
the  city  gates  against  a  bishop  whose  election  the  King  opposed , 
was  severely  punished  by  the  bishop  when  he  gained  possession 
of  his  see  and  palace.     (Kitchin's  Winchester,  121.)     The  mayor 
was  thrown  into  a  London  prison  because  a  state  prisoner  had 
escaped  from  Winchester.     (Ibid.  139.) 


3-2G          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

Against  such  odds  as  the  burghers  had  to  face  it 
was  almost  hopeless  for  any  corporation  to  contend  ; 
and  the  helpless  townsfolk  could  but  show  their 
impatience  and  discontent  in  petty  quarrels  with 
the  convent  as  to  the  site  of  a  market,  or  blindly 
do  battle  for  worthless  Kings  such  as  Henry  the 
Third  or  Edward  the  Second  if  the  monks  took  up 
the  opposite  party.1  The  struggle  for  independence 
lias  no  fine  record  of  stirring  incidents ;  but  that 
there  should  have  been  any  conflict  at  all  before  the 
settling  down  of  quiescence  and  final  apathy  is  a 
striking  instance  of  the  vitality  and  persistence  of 
municipal  institutions. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  attribute  to  the  hopeless 
situation  of  the  municipality  before  the  rival  autho- 
rities in  the  city,  and  especially  the  powerful  lords 
of  convent  and  cathedral,  much  of  the  calamity  of 
its  history.  For  at  a  time  when  prosperity  was 
generally  increasing,  its  fortunes  steadily  sank.  In 
1450  the  citizens  drew  a  terrible  picture  of  the  local 
distress,  not  in  the  vague  phrases  which  we  meet 
with  elsewhere  when  for  some  special  purpose  happier 
boroughs  put  on  a  temporary  show  of  distress,  but 
with  a  minute  exactness  which  betrays  the  truth  and 
the  whole  measure  of  their  suffering.  Winchester, 
they  declared,  "  is  become  right  desolate."  Nine 
hundred  and  ninety-seven  houses  stood  empty,  and  in 
seventeen  parish  churches  there  was  no  longer  any 

1  Compare  the  action  of  Norwich.  In  the  Wars  of  the  Roses 
the  Winchester  people  were,  like  their  bishop  Wayneflete, 
Lancastrian,  but  they  had  neither  energy  nor  power  to  play  any 
important  part.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  vi.  147.) 


x  BATTLE  FOR  SUPREMACY  :i27 

service.     A  list  is  given  of  eleven  streets  "  that  be- 
fallen down  in  the  city  of  Winchester  within  eighty 
years  last   passed  "  ;  and  in  each  case  an  account  is 
added    of  the    number   of    householders     that   had 
formerly  lived   in  the    street,  a  hundred,  a  hundred 
and  forty,  or  two  hundred,  as  the  case  might  be,  where 
there  were  now  but  two  or  three  left.     Since  the  last 
Parliament    held    there   eighty- one   households    had 
fallen.     "  The  desolation  of  the  said  poor  city  is  so 
great,  and  yearly  falling,  for  there  is  such   a   decay 
and  unwin,  that  without  gracious  comfort  of  the  King 
our  sovereign  lord,  the  mayor  and   the  bailiffs  must 
of  necessity  cease,  and  deliver  up   the   city  and   the 
keys  into  the  King's  hands."  l     To  produce  a  distress 
such  as  this  no  doubt  industrial  causes  were  at  work, 
and  Winchester  probably  suffered  as  Canterbury  did 
from   changes   in    the   woollen  manufacture   and    in 
trade  routes.     But  nowhere  in  any  considerable  city 
do  we  find  a  parallel  to  the  utter   ruin   of  this   un- 
fortunate community.     Nowhere,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  the  conditions  of  municipal  life  so  fatal,  if  once 
prosperity  began  to  dwindle  or  the  pressure  of  out- 
ward circumstances  became  such  as   to  call  on   the 
resources  of  the  people.     Through   the  breaking  up 
of  the  city  into  separate  and  independent  fragments 
the  whole  burden  of  any  difficulty  had  to  be  borne 
by  the  little  company  of  inhabitants  governed  by  the 
mayor ;  and  so  heavily  did  the    common   municipal 
charges  and  expenses  fall  on  the  scanty  population  of 
Imro-hers  shut  into  the  narrow  area  which  was  under 

o 

municipal  government,  and   from    which   alone   the 

1  Archseologia,  i.  91,  93-4. 


328          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

authorities  could  gather  the  fee-farm  and  the  royal 
taxes,  maintain  the  bridge  and  walls,  provide  house- 
holders for  the  nightly  watch,  and  furnish  men  and 
arms  for  the  defence  of  the  city  ;  and  we  do  not 
wonder  that  the  inhabitants  at  last  began  to  re- 
nounce, or  refuse  to  accept,  a  franchise  which  brought 
such  formidable  responsibilities,  or  that  they  sought 
to  escape  from  a  city  doomed  to  ruin.  An  attempt 
was  made  in  1430  to  revive  manufacture  and  com- 
merce by  an  invitation  to  all  kinds  of  traders 
and  artificers  to  come  and  do  business  in  Win- 
chester free  of  toll.1  But  the  experiment  in  free 
trade  was  quickly  abandoned,  probably  because  the 
corporation  could  not  meet  the  heavy  yearly  ex- 
penses without  the  customary  taxes  levied  on  trade;2 
and  in  1450  the  citizens  laid  a  petition  before  Henry 
the  Sixth,  praying  him  to  consider  the  extent  of 
their  distress.  They  were  bound,  they  said,  to  pay 
yearly  a  rent  of  112  marks  to  the  King,  "for 
the  which  said  fee-farm  so  to  be  paid  your  bailiffs 
have  little  or  naught  of  certainty  to  raise  it  of, 
but  only  of  casualties  and  yearly  leases  £40  or 
more."  There  was  further  a  sum  of  £50  10s.  4=d. 
for  the  tax  of  the  fifteenth,  "  the  which  when  it 
is  levy  able,  some  one  man  in  the  said  city  is  set 
unto  four  marks  and  some  five  marks,  because 
your  said  city  is  desolate  of  people."  Then  came 
a  sum  of  GQs.  to  be  paid  yearly  to  the  Magdalen 

J  Gross,  ii.  260-1. 

2  Payments  for  stalls  went  to  the  King's  ferm.  (Ibid.  262.) 
The  question  was  therefore  one  of  revenue  and  not  one  of 
protection. 


x  BATTLE  FOR  SUPREMACY  320 

Hospital ; l  and  besides  that  there  were  the  expenses 
of  two  burgesses  to  Parliament  who  cost  4s.  a  day ; 
"  and  also  the  great  charges  and  daily  costs  the  which 
your  said  poor  city  beareth  about  the  enclosing  and 
murage  of  your  said  city."  To  add  to  all  their 
trouble  a  grant  which  the  king  had  made  to  the 
municipality  in  1439  of  forty  marks  from  the  ulnage 
and  subsidies  of  woollen  cloths  had  been  withdrawn 
again ;  and  the  commonalty  sadly  entreat  that  it  may 
be  restored. 

The  King  allowed  the  payment  of  the  forty  marks 
during  the  next  fifty  years,  and  Winchester  made 
one  or  two  further  attempts  at  mending  its  fortunes. 
The  people  of  Southampton  had  as  long  ago  as  1406 
succeeded  in  obtaining  a  license  from  the  bishop 
of  Winchester,  to  buy  and  sell  within  their  town 
during  the  fair  of  St.  Giles  ; 3  and  the  mayor  and 
community  of  Winchester  perhaps  hoped  to  follow  this 
example.  In  1451  they  raised  a  debate  as  to  the 
franchises  and  customs  of  the  fair,  and  interfered  with 
the  bishop's  privileges ;  but  their  usual  ill  luck 
pursued  them  and  they  were  obliged  to  submit  and 
give  a  promise  that  he  should  never  again  be  dis- 
turbed from  having  the  keeping  of  the  city  and  the 
customs  aforesaid.4  A  few  years  later  a  transient 
gleam  of  hope  was  cast  across  the  unhappy  town 
when  the  Italian  merchants  were  driven  out  of 

1  Archaeologia,  i.  102. 

2  The  fraternity  of  St.  John  allowed  nearly  £35  a  year  to- 
wards the  maintenance  of  the  bridge  and  walls. 

3  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  xi.  part  3,  77. 

4  Ibid.  vi.  595-605. 


330          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

London  in  1456,  and  in  this  sudden  emergency 
hired  the  "great  old  mansions"1  which  the  Win- 
chester traders  had  allowed  to  fall  into  decay,  putting 
the  owners  to  heavy  expenses  for  repairs.  But 
they  seem  never  to  have  occupied  the  mansions 
after  all.  Perhaps  they  were  disheartened  by  the 
sense  of  failing  trade  and  oppressive  taxes ;  or 
they  possibly  feared  the  dangers  that  might  come  to 
them  in  a  town  that  had  never  been  allowed  powers 
to  govern  and  defend  and  deal  fairly  by  its  own 
townsfolk.  In  any  case  they  left  the  big  empty 
houses  to  go  to  Southampton,  and  Winchester  was 
none  the  better.2 

Winchester  was  an  extreme  instance  of  difficulties 
which  were  felt  in  every  other  town  in  a  greater  or 
less  degree.  For  scarcely  any  important  borough  was 
without  some  ecclesiastical  settlement  within  its 
walls,  and  everywhere  the  dispute  took  the  gravest 
form.  With  the  King  or  with  a  neighbouring  lord 
the  boroughs  might  make  terms  of  peace,  or  impose 
conditions  as  conquerors,  but  their  most  imposing- 
demonstrations  were  inevitably  routed  before  the 
power  of  the  Church.  Outbreaks  of  popular  fury  in 
which  from  time  to  time  the  irritation  of  the  burghers 
found  expression  have  often  been  represented  as 
symptoms  of  a  spirit  of  malice  and  misrule  by  which 
an  ignorant  mob  was  instigated  to  attack  the  most 

1  Gregory's  Chronicle  of  London,  eel.  Gairdner,  Early  English 
Text  Soc.  199. 

-  A  charter  of  Edward  the  Fourth  still  speaks  of  Winchester 
as  now  being  "  quite  unable  to  pay  the  fee-farm  rent  of  100 
marks."  (Kitchin's  Winchester,  174.) 


BATTLE  FOR  SUPREMACY  331 

beneficent  institution  known  to  their  society  and  with 
no  justification  save  from  their  lawless  temper  seek  to 
appropriate  to  themselves  its  privileges  and  possessions. 
But  the  causes  of  the  conflict  were  more  valid  and 
serious.     As  the  instances  given  in  the  next  chapter 
prove,  the  burghers  learned  by  a  genuine  experience 
to  gauge  the  beneficence  of  the   Church's  claims   to 
temporal  authority.     There  does  not  seem  to  have 
been   in   England,   as  there   often   was   abroad,    the 
additional    stimulus    of    religious    revolt,    for    the 
practical   townspeople    apparently  did    not  find  the 
slightest  difficulty  in  distinguishing  between  spiritual 
influence   and   secular    jurisdiction,   mainly   perhaps 
because  the  power  of  the  ecclesiastical  potentates  in 
England  was  of  so  limited  a  kind  as  to  awaken  but 
a  moderate  fear   and   equally  moderate   excitement. 
But  in  face  of  the  secular  problem  created  by  the 
presence  of  a  rival  authority  ruling  over  half  the  space 
enclosed  in  the  town  walls — an  authority  with  which 
no  permanent  agreement  could  ever  be  concluded  and 
which  was  manifestly  fatal  to  the  dignity  or  the  suc- 
cess  of  municipal  government — the  boroughs   were 
forced,  as  a  mere  matter   of   self-preservation,   into 
insistent  and  reiterated  demands   that    this    double 
rule  should  be  abolished,  and  that  there  should  be 
but    one   undivided    and    supreme    control    in    each 
community    for   civil   affairs.     When   the    pole-axes 
and  daggers  with  which  they  at  first  sought  to  en- 
force  their   convictions  were  laid  aside,  they  turned 
to   the    law-courts    and    the   paper   wars    of   West- 
minster  to    seek   a    remedy    for    their   grievances ; 
and  it   is  in  the  records  of  trials  from  the  middle 


332          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY       CH.  x 

of  the  fifteenth  century  to  the  Eeformation  in 
which  the  pleadings  of  both  sides  may  be  heard 
that  we  find  the  real  justification  of  the  burghers' 
claim  to  civic  supremacy,  and  of  their  determined 
assaults  on  the  political  independence  of  ecclesi- 
astical communities. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH 

Ix  the  history  of  Winchester  we  may  perhaps  find 
a  clue  to  the  explanation  of  that  great  controversy 
which  for  centuries  divided  the  mediaeval  municipalities 
and  the  religious  corporations  into  two  hostile  armies, 
—armies  that  chafed  under  the  restraints  of  an 
enforced  and  angry  truce,  and  from  time  to  time 
broke  into  the  brief  exhilaration  of  a  free  fight. 
There  were  certain  towns,  such  as  Exeter  or  Canter- 
bury or  Norwich,  where  the  municipality  was  as  free 
as  royal  charters  could  make  it  and  acknowledged  no 
dependence  on  Cathedral  or  Priory,  and  where 
notwithstanding  Town  and  Church  were  always  in 
arms  against  one  another,  and  the  task  of  adjusting 
their  mutual  relations  presented  such  insoluble 
difficulties  that  every  other  question  seemed  of  easy 
settlement  in  comparison  with  a  problem  so  insistent, 
so  manifold  in  its  forms,  so  tremendous  in  its  propor- 
tions in  the  eyes  of  burgher  and  of  ecclesiastic.  The 
convent  or  chapter,  entrenched  behind  its  circuit  of 
walls  and  towers,  with  its  own  system  of  laws,  its 


334          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURA      CHAP. 

own  executive,  its  independent  trade  and  revenues, 
had  practically  no  interest  either  in  the  prosperity 
or  the  security  of  the  town,  while  its  keenest  activi- 
ties, whether  from  the  point  of  view  of  business  or 
religion,  were  enlisted  in  uncompromising  defence 
of  ecclesiastical  privilege.  On  the  other  hand  the 
body  of  burghers,  conscious  of  the  difficulties  of 
government,  with  a  mass  of  complicated  business 
thrown  on  their  hands  and  a  heavy  financial  responsi- 
bility, nervously  keeping  guard  over  their  franchises, 
inspired  by  a  commanding  sense  of  the  importance 
of  strict  organization,  and  an  ambition  stimulated 
by  tradition,  success,  and  capacity,  found  in  com- 
mon experience  reasons  for  judging  that  a  double 
system  of  law  and  a  double  authority  was  the  negation 
of  order,  peace,  or  material  prosperity  in  their  little 
republic.  Their  avowed  object  was  to  put  an  end  to 
this  division  of  the  borough  into  two  camps,  and  to 
secure  for  the  community  the  ultimate  control  of 
administration  within  the  city  boundaries.  Hence  the 
issues  raised  between  the  townspeople  and  the  clerical 
order  were  direct  and  clear.  Questions  of  temporal 
and  spiritual  power,  of  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  of 
the  immunities  claimed  by  the  "  clergy,"  of  the  gulf 
that  separated  the  servant  of  the  Church  from  the 
citizen  of  the  State — all  these  things  were  forced 
home  to  the  people  with  the  sharpness,  variety,  and 
force  of  practical  illustration.  The  war  which  in 
the  twelfth  century  had  been  waged  on  behalf  of 
the  State  and  the  Church  by  their  great  representa- 
tives, Henry  the  Second  and  Archbishop  Thomas, 
was  during  the  next  three  centuries  brought  down 


xi  THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH  335 

into  every  borough  and  fought  out  there  in  more 
humble  fashion  by  provincial  mayors  and  ecclesiastics 
of  a  circumscribed  and  stinted  fame. 

And  as  the  quarrel  was  long  so  it  was  practically 
universal.     It   was  this   that  made    the  struo-ale   so 

GO 

momentous.  Few  boroughs  after  all  were  subject  to 
the  absolute  rule  of  ecclesiastical  lords ;  and  their 
attempts  to  win  freedom  were  local,  isolated,  without 
national  significance.  But  all  the  great  towns  had 
one  or  more  ecclesiastical  bodies  established  within 
their  boundaries,  and  all  were  able  to  appreciate  the 
character  of  the  conflict  entailed  on  them.  Nor 
were  the  consequences  of  the  dispute  exaggerated 
by  the  combatants  on  either  side.  During  centuries 
of  strife  they  had  abundant  opportunity  of  gauging 
its  importance — from  the  time  of  Edward  the 
First,  when,  by  the  enclosing  of  churchyards  and 
ecclesiastical  precincts  with  walls,  the  attempt  was 
made  to  shut  in  religious  authorities  within  their 
own  limits,  and  give  the  town  undivided  respon- 
sibility outside  these  boundaries — till  the  time  when 
triumphant  burghers  saw  walls  and  towers  levelled 
to  the  ground  under  Henry  the  Eighth. 

For  in  the  war  waged  by  burghers  against  clerics 
who  used  spiritual  authority  to  create  temporal  sover- 
eignty, and  in  this  temporal  power  then  found  means 
to  enforce  spiritual  claims, — though  the  combatants 
were  people  of  no  account,  fighting  their  quarrel  out 
in  remote  and  isolated  boroughs,  and  though  the  noise 
of  the  battle  no  longer  resounded  as  it  had  once  done 
throughout  Europe, — the  conflict  was  still  the  same, 
the  questions  were  as  vital  for  the  just  ordering  of 


336          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

human  society,  and  the  tenacity  of  the  opponents 
was  as  great  as  ever.  The  disputes  covered  the 
whole  field  of  practical  life.  In  matters  of  trade  there 
was  not  only  the  rivalry  of  two  trading  companies 
under  different  conditions  of  wealth,  influence,  and 
protection ; l  but  even  in  the  case  of  individuals  there 
was  unfair  competition,  as  when  a  citizen  gave  up  his 
dwelling  in  the  town,  obtained  a  corrody  in  some 
ecclesiastical  house,  and  claimed  the  benefits  of  citizen- 
ship without  bearing  its  obligations.2  Sometimes  the 
burghers  found  themselves  called  to  defend  against 
the  ecclesiastical  lawyers  a  right  which  had  been 
proved  essential  to  their  freedom — the  right  of  being- 
tried  only  in  their  own  courts — and  the  commonalty 
would  make  ordinances  that  no  process-server  should 
carry  or  cite  elsewhere  men  or  women  living  in  the 
borough,  and  the  jury  of  the  Leet  Court  kept  watch 
and  made  their  presentment  of  summoners,  com- 
missary, and  clerks  who  had  dealt  lightly  with  the 
liberties  or  goods  of  the  citizens,  or  called  them  to 
distant  courts.3  Or  again,  the  iiwaluable  privilege  of 
having  all  matters  that  concerned  the  commons  of  the 
borough  tried  by  a,  jury  of  inhabitants  and  not  of 
aliens,  might  be  put  in  jeopardy.  In  Lincoln  the  dean 
and  chapter  had  a  special  grudge  against  trials  "  by 

1  See  the  case  of  Lincoln,  Rot.  Parl.  i.  156-7. 

2  Hudson's  Leet  Jurisdiction  of  Norwich  (Selden  Soc.). 

3  Cutts'  Colchester,  149.     Hudson's  Norwich  Leet- Jurisdiction 
(Selden  Soc.),  17.     See  pp.  xxxvii.,  xli.     The  constables  of  Nott- 
ingham  at  the  court  Icet  present  the  "  Master  Official  (of  the 
archdeacon)   for   excessive  and  extorcious   taking   of  fees "   for 
probate  of   testaments,  and   for  over  assessing  poor  folks  and 
men's  servants  at  Easter  for  their  tythes.     (Records,  iii.  364.) 


xi  THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHUECH  337 

people  of  the  same  city,  which  be  so  favourable  one 
to  another  'that  they  doubt  not  to  make  false  oaths, 
and  that  because  they  be  encouraged,  forasmuch  as 
they  have  not  been  before  this  time  convict  by 
foreigners  by  colour  of  their  franchise."  On  their 
complaint  "  our  lord  the  King,  willing,  for  the  cause 
aforesaid,  to  provide  for  the  quietness  of  the  said 
church,  and  full  right  to  be  done  as  well  to  the  said 
bishop,  dean,  and  chapter  and  their  successors,"  ordered 
that  henceforth  "  if  any  of  the  parties  feel  himself 
grieved  of  a  false  oath  made  by  such  assize,  jury, 
or  inquest,  the  attaint  shall  be  granted  to  him,  and 
the  record  sent  by  writ  into  the  King's  Bench  or 
into  the  Common  Pleas ;  and  that  the  sheriff  im- 
panel the  jury  of  such  attaint  of  foreigners  of  the 
county,  without  sending  to  the  franchise  of  the  said 
city,  and  that  the  justices  shall  take  the  same  jury 
of  the  same  foreigners,  notwithstanding  any  franchise 
granted  to  the  same  city,  or  other  usage  to  the  con- 
trary." l  The  question  of  sanctuary,  too,  remained  a 
standing  trouble,  and  the  bailiffs  of  the  borough  who 
sent  town  clerks  and  town  Serjeants  to  make  procla- 
mation for  weeks  together  at  the  abbey  gate  calling 
upon  a  debtor  who  had  fled  from  his  creditors  to 
appear  for  judgement,  had  small  sympathy  with  the 
abbot's  privileges.2  Whenever  burghers  had  liberty 
and  opportunity  to  act  on  their  own  judgement 
they  found  no  difficulty  in  coming  to  a  decision  as 
to  the  sanctity  imposed  by  religion  on  territories 

1  13  Richard  the  Second,  1,  c.  18.     Statute  4  Henry  the  Fifth, 
c.  5,  repeats  with  some  alterations  that  of  Richard 

2  1454,  Cutts'  Colchester,  150-1. 

VOL.  I  z 


338          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

consecrated  to  sacred  uses.  From  old  premises  they 
drew  new  conclusions.  "  As  holiness  becomes  the 
Lord's  House,"  declared  the  mayor,  jurats,  and  whole 
community  of  Rye  in  1483,  "in  future,  to  the  honour 
of  God  and  of  the  glorious  Virgin  Mary,  the  parish 
church  of  the  said  town,  with  the  churchyard  and 
the  manse  of  the  vicarage  thereof,  shall  be  of  the 
same  freedom,  and  with  as  much  liberty  as  the  other 
houses  of  the  freemen,  especially  as  to  arrests  and 
other  matters." l 

There  is  perhaps  no  better  illustration  of  the 
character  and  conditions  of  the  controversy  between 
town  and  church  than  the  story  of  the  quarrel  between 
Exeter  city  and  the  Cathedral,  which  has  been  preserved 
for  us  in  the  letters  of  an  able  mayor,  who  at  a  very 
important  crisis  conducted  the  case  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  against  the  chapter,  and  whose  phrases, 
written  in  the  heat  of  battle,  carry  us  back  into  the 
very  midst  of  a  long-forgotten  strife.  Descended  from 
an  old  county  family  which  had  thrown  in  its  lot  with 
the  burghers  of  Exeter  and  become  traders  in  the  city 
and  leaders  in  its  counsels,  John  Shillingford  was 
born  into  a  tradition  of  civic  patriotism.  His  father 
served  as  mayor  from  1428  to  1430  and  was  noted  for 
being  learned  in  the  law ;  and  John  Shillingford 
himself  was  mayor  three  times,  and  the  distinguished 
leader  from  1445  to  1448  of  a  struggle  for  independ- 
ence which  was  already  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  old. 

From  1206  or  earlier  Exeter  had  been  governed 
by  its  own  mayor  and  bailiffs,  and  the  citizens 
held  their  town  at  a  fee-farm  rent  from  the  King. 
1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  496. 


xi         THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH         339 

But  a  century  later  the  mayor  was  a  mere  dependciit 
of  the  Earl  of  Devonshire,  wearing  his  "  livery  "  as 
one  of  his  retainers  and  acknowledging  his  protection. 
However  it  happened  on  a  certain  day  in  1309  that 
the  earl  and  bishop  made  an  attempt  to  buy  all  the 
fish  in  the  Exeter  market,  leaving  none  for  the  towns- 
folk. Then  the  mayor,  "  minding  the  welfare  of  the 
commons  of  the  said  city,  and  that  they  also  might 
have  the  benefit  of  the  said  market,"  ruled  that  one- 
third  of  the  fish  must  be  given  to  the  citizens.  The 
carl  with  loud  threatenings  angrily  ordered  his  rebel- 
lious dependent  to  appear  before  him.  Followed  by 
a  tumultuous  procession  of  "  his  brethren  and  houest 
commons  of  the  said  city,"  the  mayor  went  from 
the  Guild  Hall  to  the  earl's  house,  entered  his  lord's 
"  lodging  chamber,"  and  there  took  off  his  "  livery" 
coat  and  gave  it  back  to  the  earl  once  for  all,  the 
commons  meanwhile  beating  at  the  door  and  loudly 
demanding  their  mayor,  till  the  terrified  earl  entreated 
him  to  quiet  their  clamour.  The  town  forthwith 
passed  a  law  that  no  citizen  should  ever  again 
wrear  "  foreigner's  livery,"  and  so  began  the  long 
fight  for  municipal  independence.1 

For  the  same  two  great  powers  ever  kept  watch 
on  the  Exeter  citizens  and  their  market,  if  by 
chance  there  was  any  profit  which  could  be  turned 
their  way.  At  the  town  gates  the  Earls  of  Devonshire 
held  Exe  Island  and  the  adjoining  suburb,  com- 
manded the  navigation  of  the  Exe,  forced  the  mayor 
to  lay  aside  his  mace  as  he  approached  the  suburb, 
and  sought  to  recall  the  days  when  he  had  worn  their 
1  Freeman's  Exeter,  165. 

z  2 


340          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP, 

livery.  A  more  dangerous  enemy  was  encamped  within 
the  walls.  Just  opposite  the  little  town-hall  rose  the 
great  wall  with  its  towers  which  guarded  the  bishop's 
palace,  the  cathedral,  and  the  ecclesiastical  precincts  -r 
and  within  this  fortified  enclosure  ruled  an  august 
power  that  defied  the  petty  upstart  forces  of  the 
mayor  and  his  group  of  shopkeepers  outside.  The 
conflict  of  the  town  with  the  Earls,1  if  it  lasted  for 
something  like  three  hundred  years,  was  still  of  minor 
significance.  The  conflict  with  the  Church  was  far 
more  dangerous  in  form  and  serious  in  its  issues. 

The  town  and  the  close,  as  we  are  told  by  the 
mayor  in  1448,  had  "been  in  debate  by  divers- 
times  almost  by  time  of  eightscore  years,  and  that 
I  could  never  know,  find  nor  read  that  we  ever  took 
a  suit  against  them,  but  ever  stand  in  defence  as- 
a  buckler  player,  and  smiter  never."  Now  at  last, 
however,  the  citizens  were  resolved  "  once  to  smite, 
taking  a  suit,"  3  as  became  the  temper  and  traditions, 
of  the  fifteenth  century  when  such  quarrels  were 
fought  out,  not  with  clubs  and  daggers,  but  in  the 
"paper  wars  of  Westminster."  As  the  crisis  ap- 
proached the  townsfolk  made  ready  for  the  fray. 
Determined  that  their  battle  should  be  conducted 
by  the  most  capable  man  among  them,  at  Michael- 
mas, 1444,  they  elected  as  their  mayor  John  Shil- 

1  Freeman's  Exeter,  84-5,  165-6. 

2  Shillingf orcl's  Letters  (Camden    Society),   p.    68.     An  order 
of  the  town  had  been  issued  in  1339  that  no  clerk   of  the  con- 
sistory court  was  to  be  chosen  mayor  or  bailiff  or  allowed  to 
meddle  with  the  elections.     Freeman's  Exeter,  147. 

3  The  bishop  had    taken  an  action  years   before  in   1432-3. 
Shillingford's  Letters,  xiv. 


xi         THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH        341 

liugford.  He  refused  to  accept  office,  upon  which 
they  sent  to  Westminster  and  procured  a  writ 
under  the  Privy  Seal  ordering  him  either  to  submit 
or  pay  a  fine  of  £1,000,  a  sum  which  probably  no 
single  individual  in  Exeter  at  that  time  possessed. 
In  February  1445  therefore,  he  "  came  to  the  Guild 
Hall  and  there  was  sworn  ;  and  though  at  the  first 
with  an  evil  will,  yet  in  the  end  did  perform  it 
very  well," ' — so  well  indeed  that  the  bishop  even 
saw  in  "  the  wilful  labour  of  John  Shillingford  "  the 
main  cause  of  all  "  the  great  hurt  and  loss  of  the  said 
church  and  city." 

Once  Mayor  Shillingford  quickly  threw  down 
his  challenge  to  the  chapter.  On  Ascension  Day, 
1445,  the  city  Serjeant  followed  a  servant  of  the 
chancellor  into  the  precincts,  and  there  arrested  him 
when  he  was  actually  taking  part  in  a  procession, 
holding  up  from  the  ground  his  master's  golden 
cope  ; 3  and  two  more  arrests  of  clerks  followed  in  a 
little  over  a  year.  A  new  mayor  took  his  place  at 
Michaelmas  1445,  but  when  in  April  144G  the  chapter 
prepared  to  bring  a  suit  against  the  town,  laying  the 
damages  at  £1,000,  the  city  again  fell  back  on 
Shillingford  and  for  the  two  critical  years  of  the 
strife  he  remained  supreme  magistrate  and  led  the 
fight  as  it  broadened  so  as  to  cover  the  whole  range 
of  the  civic  life.  Party  strife  ran  high,  and  the 
inhabitants  were  soon  on  terms  of  open  war.  On  one 
occasion  in  the  midst  of  the  quarrel,  a  great  stack  of 
wood  which  lay  between  the  cathedral  and  the  town 
was  set  on  fire  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  shortest  time  of 
i  Shillingford's  Letters,  xxii.-iv.  -  Ibid.  98.  3  Ibid.  xiv. 


342          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

the  year.  This,  the  burgesses  cried  out,  was  done  by 
the  ministers  of  the  cathedral  to  burn  down  the  town. 
The  charge  was  thrown  back  in  their  teeth  by  the 
canons,  who  protested  it  was  set  afire  by  men  of  the 
same  city  deliberately  by  consent  of  the  commonalty 
with  intent  to  burn  the  church.1  The  tossing  to  and  fro 
of  such  an  accusation  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the  state 
of  feeling  that  existed.  The  cathedral  party  hated 
the  townspeople  as  a  usurping  and  rebellious  mob ; 
while  to  the  townsfolk  when  their  passion  was  aroused 
the  cathedral  within  its  walls  wore  the  aspect  of  a 
fortress  in  their  midst,  held  by  the  power  of  an  ancient 
enemy. 

Which  was  the  "  smiter  "  in  the  quarrel  it  would 
be  indeed  hard  to  say.  The  claims  raised  on  either 
side  were  absolutely  irreconcilable,  and  each  denied 
with  great  frankness  and  conviction  every  asser- 
tion put  forward  by  the  other.  For  convincing 
proof  of  its  own  dignity  the  corporation  boldly 
carried  back  its  inquiries  to  some  unknown  period 
before  the  Christian  era,  when  Exeter  "  was  a  city 
walled,  and  suburb  to  the  same  of  most  reputation  ;  " 
and  recounted  how  "  soon  upon  the  passion  of  Christ 
it  was  besieged  by  Vespasian  by  time  of  eight  days ; 
the  which  obtained  not  the  effect  of  his  siege,  and  so 
wended  forth  to  Bordeaux,  and  from  Bordeaux  to 
Rome,  and  from  Rome  to  Jerusalem,  and  then  he 
with  Titus  besieged  Jerusalem  and  obtained  and  sold 
thirty  Jews'  heads  for  a  penny,  as  it  appeareth  by 
Chronicles."  They  then  passed  on  to  its  position 
under  the  Saxon  Kings  ;  and  thence  came  directly  to 

1  Shillingford's  Letters,  86-7. 


xi  THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH  343 

the  privileges  of  the  mayor,  derived  from  the  good  old 
time  when  bailiffs  and  citizens  held  the  town  in 
fee-farm  from  the  King,  before  any  monastery  or 
cathedral  church  was  built.1  All  the  historical  re- 
search on  this  side  in  fact  plainly  proved  the  ecclesias- 
tical authority  to  be  a  mere  modern  usurpation,  of  no 
credit  or  value. 

The  bishop  and  chapter  for  their  part  ignored  the 
times  before  Vespasian,  and  bluntly  "  say  that  they 
doubt  of  Vespasian's  being  at  Exeter,  and  so  at 
Bordeaux  and  Jerusalem,  to  sell  thirty  Jews'  heads 
for  a  penny ;  "  so  coming  at  once  to  their  main  conten- 
tion, they  declared  that  St.  Stephen's  Fee  was  no 
parcel  of  the  city,  as  the  Book  of  Domesday  would 
show,  and  was  indeed  "  of  elder  time  than  is  the 
city,"  for  Exeter  was  nothing  more  than  a  borough 
till  the  first  bishop  had  been  installed  there  by  the 
Confessor.  Indeed  they  observed  that  the  mayor 
himself  was  well  known  to  be  an  officer  of  yesterday, 
since  till  the  time  of  Henry  the  Third  there  "  was  no 
mayor  nor  fee-farm,"  but  the  town  was  governed  by 
the  sheriff  of  the  county,  and  the  bishops  in  their 
sphere  had  absolute  jurisdiction,  "  without  that  time 
out  of  mind  there  were  any  such  mayor,  bailiffs,  and 
commonalty  known  in  the  city.2 

But  all  the  arguments  of  the  bishop,  "  that  blessed 
good  man  in  himself  if  he  must  be  Edmund,  Bishop 
of  Exeter,"3  as  the  mayor  politely  remarked,  were 
thrown  away  on  Shillingford.  "  I  said  nay,  and  proved 
it  by  Domesday,"  4  he  writes,  fully  satisfied  that  my 

1  Shillingford's  Letters,  75-6.  2  Ibid,  p.  95-6. 

3  Ibid.  p.  1,  43.  4  Ibid.  10. 


344          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

lord  "  had  no  more  knowledge  of  the  ground  of  this 
matter  than  the  image  in  the  cloth  of  arras  there  "  l — a 
melancholy  ignorance,  "  considering  his  blessedness, 
holy  living,  and  good  conscience."  The  prelate's 
history,  indeed,  like  that  of  his  antagonist,  was  not 
without  reproach.  Domesday  makes  no  mention  of  any 
separate  lands  of  the  Church  in  Exeter  ;  but  copies  of 
Domesday  were  scarce,  and  it  was  tolerably  safe  to  refer 
to  its  authority.  In  any  case,  however,  the  daily 
pressure  of  circumstance  was  so  strong  that  it  mattered 
very  little  to  the  opposing  forces  whether  ancient 
history  justified  their  position  or  no.  To  the  burghers 
the  difficulties  of  a  divided  administration,  and  the 
humiliation  of  submission,  were  made  more  galling 
every  day  by  the  growing  prosperity  of  the  town 
and  the  independent  temper  of  the  time;  while  the 
chapter,  confident  in  the  legal  strength  of  their 
position,  had  not  the  least  hesitation  in  forcing  on  the 
conflict. 

The  suit  which  opened  in  London  in  1447  was 
complicated  and  costly,2  and  mayor  and  law  officers 
and  town  councillors  in  Exeter  had  to  put  forth  all 
their  resources.  Perpetual  consultations  were  carried 
on  in  the  Town  Hall  with  the  help  of  much  malmsey  ; 
once  two  plovers  and  a  partridge  helped  the  feast. 
As  time  went  on  the  expenses  in  meat  and  drink 
were  heavy ;  judges  had  to  be  feasted,  and  the  muni- 
cipal officers  encouraged,  and  presents  were  needed 
for  the  great  folk  in  London,  besides  the  serious  cost 
of  sending  messengers  continually  to  London,  Tiver- 

1  Shillingford's  Letters,  p.  43,  44. 

2  Ibid,  xiv.-xvi.  ;  Freeman's  Exeter,  158-60. 


xi         THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH        345 

ton,  and  Crediton.  Even  after  the  matter  was  finally 
decided  the  city  had  to  make  up  in  the  next  year 
rewards  of  money,  and  gifts  of  fish  and  wine,  for 
which  it  was  still  in  debt.1 

The  most  arduous  and  costly  part  of  the  work, 
however,  lay  in  the  vast  amount  of  historical  and 
legal  research  which  the  case  demanded.  "  It  asketh 
many  great  ensearches,"  said  Shillingford,  "  first  in 
our  treasury  at  home  among  full  many  great  and  old 
records  ;  afterward  at  Westminster,  first  in  the  Chan- 
cery, in  the  Exchequer,  in  the  Receipt,  and  in  the 
Tower ;  and  all  these  ensearches  asketh  great  labour 
long  time  as  after  this,  to  make  our  articles  we  have 
many  true  against  one  of  theirs."  2  Evidences  and 
documents  were  read  and  re-read,  and  arguments 
brought  from  the  Black  Roll  of  the  city,  from  Domesday 
Book,  from  Magna  Charta,  from  statutes,  charters,  and 
letters  patent,  from  the  eyres  holden  at  Exeter  by 
the  judges  of  Edward  the  First,  from  records  of  the 
"customs"  under  Henry  the  Third  or  Edward  the 
Third.  The  Recorder  of  Exeter  worked  hard,  and 
the  mayor  turned  confidently  to  him  when  legal 
questions  became  peculiarly  obscure.  It  "is  dark 
to  my  conceit  as  yet,"  he  writes  from  London ; 
"but  I  trust  to  God  it  shall  be  right  well  with 
vour  good  information  and  help  thereto ;  to  which 
intent  I  send  you  a  roll  in  the  which  is  contained 
copies  of  Domesday,  copy  of  eyres,  of  charters, 
and  other  things  that  is  necessary  to  be  seen  in 
making  of  these  replications.  I  can  no  more  at  this 
time,  but  I  pray  you  be  not  weary  to  over-read 

1  Shillingford's  Letters,  p.  143,  et  seq.  2  Ibid.  p.  58. 


346          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

hear  and  see  all  the  writing  that  I  have  sent  home 
to  you  at  this  time ;  and  if  you  be,  no  marvel 
though  I  be  weary,  and  God  be  with  you."  l 

Shillingford  himself  was  constantly  in  London  ; 
where  the  record  of  one  day's  work  may  serve  as  an 
instance  of  his  activity.  He  left  Exeter  at  6 
o'clock  on  Wednesday  morning,  and  reached  London 
on  Saturday  at  7  A.M.  "  That  day  I  had  right  great 
business,"  he  says.  First  he  went  to  the  Exchequer  to 
see  about  Exmouth  Port ;  then  to  Westminster 
Hall  to  speak  with  various  lawyers ;  after  that  he 
visited  the  chief  justice,  Sir  John  Fortescue,  and  rode 
with  him  homeward ;  then  he  called  on  another  jus- 
tice, Sir  Richard  Newton  ;  from  thence  he  went  to 
commune  "  with  our  counsel  of  our  matters  ;  "  and  in 
the  afternoon  proposed  to  visit  the  archbishop  at 
Lambeth.2  Meanwhile  he  kept  a  certain  watch  over 
affairs  at  home,  and  sent  an  occasional  order  as  to 
the  conduct  of  local  business  in  Exeter.  "  Also  I 
charge  Germin  (the  treasurer)  under  rule  and  com- 
mandent  of  J.  Coteler,  my  lieutenant,  that  he  do 
that  he  can  do,  brawl,  brag  and  brace,  lie  and  swear 
well  to,  and  in  special  that  the  streets  be  right  clean 
and  specially  the  little  lane  in  the  back-side  beneath 
the  flesh-fold  gate,  for  there  lieth  many  oxen  heads 
and  bones,  that  they  be  removed  away  for  the  nonce 
against  my  coming,  as  soon  as  I  may  by  cokky's 
bones."  3 

From  London  long  letters  to  the  "  Fellowship  "   at 
home  rehearsed  every  step  of  the  negociations,  from  the 
moment  when  the  mayor  first  "  came  to  Westminster 
1  Shillingford's  Letters,  17.      2  Ibid.  pp.  67,  68.      5  Ibid.  23. 


xi  THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH  347 

soon  upon  nine  of  the  bell,  and  there  met  with  my 
lord  chancellor  at  the  broad  door  a  little  from  the 
stair-foot  coming  from  the  Star  Chamber,  I  in  the 
court,  and  by  the  door  kneeling  and  saluting  him 
in  the  most  goodly  wise  that  I  could,  and  recom- 
mended unto  his  good  and  gracious  lordship  my 
fellowship  and  all  the  commonalty,  his  own  people 
and  bedesmen  of  the  city  of  Exeter.  He  said  to 
the  mayor  two  times  '  Welcome '  and  the  third 
time  '  Right  welcome,  mayor/  and  held  the  mayor 
a  great  while  fast  by  the  hand,  and  so  went  forth 
to  his  barge  and  with  him  great  press,  lords  and 
other."  In  the  same  way  Shillingford  notes 

carefully  every  detail  of  the  grave  ceremonial 
observed  before  the  arbiters  of  the  city's  destiny, 
when  "  my  lord  took  his  chair  and  the  justices 
sat  with  him,  and  both  parties  with  their  counsel 
kneeled  before."  2  Then  followed  a  long  argument  in 
which  the  mayor  held  his  own  against  the  lawyers, 
and  "so  we  departed,  standing  afar  from  my  lord, 
and  he  asked  wine  and  sent  me  his  own  cup,  and 
to  no  more ;  " 3  also  "  my  lord  in  this  time  did  me 
much  worship  and  openly  ....  commended  me  for  my 
good  rule  at  home."  When  a  letter  from  the  mayor 
was  addressed  to  the  lord  chancellor,  we  hear  how  the 
recorder  "  kissed  the  letter  and  put  it  into  my  lord's 
blessed  hand,  and  my  lord  with  a  glad  countenance 
received  the  letter,  and  said  that  the  mayor  and  all 
the  commons  should  have  Christ's  blessing  and  his, 
and  bade  my  master  Radford4  to  stand  up,  and  so 

1  Shiilingford's  Letters,  p.  6.  2  Ibid.  p.  12. 

3  Ibid.  p.  12-15,  63.  "  The  Recorder  of  Exeter. 


348          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

did,  and  anon  my  lord  brake  the  letter  even  while 
grace  was  saying,  and  there  right  read  it  every  deal 
or  he  went  to  his  dinner." 

Business  in  London  was  best  furthered  by  judi- 
cious gifts,  and  Exeter  was  constantly  called  on  to 
send  fish  to  the  chancellor — conger  eel,  400  of 
buckhorn  or  dried  whiting,  or  a  "  fish  called  crabs."  l 
Or  again  when  the  prudent  mayor  heard  the  lord 
chancellor  bid  the  justice  to  dinner  for  a  Friday,  "  I 
did  as  me  thought  ought  to  be  done.  .  .  and  sent 
thither  that  day  two  stately  pickerellis  and  two 
stately  tenches." 2  This  proved  a  very  successful 
venture,  as  "  it  came  in  good  season  "  for  the  great 
lords  and  bishops  who  dined  with  the  chancellor  that 
day.  At  one  stage  of  the  business  indeed  the  mayor 
thought  it  unwise  to  proceed  with  his  argument 
until  a  certain  present  of  fish  should  arrive.  "  I 
tarried  and  yet  tarried  because  of  the  buckhorn, 
the  which  came  not  yet,  me  to  right  great  anger 
and  discomfort  by  my  troth.  .  .  for  it  had  been  a 
good  mean  and  order,  after  speaking  and  communica- 
tion above-said,  the  buckhorn  to  have  been  presented, 
and  I  to  have  come  thereafter,  and  so  to  have  sped 
much  the  better ;  but  now  it  is  like  to  fail  to  hinder- 
ing." 3  Whether  it  was  the  fault  of  the  trea- 
surer of  the  town,  or  of  the  carrier,  he  did  not  know  ; 
he  was  sure  each  would  accuse  the  other.  "  Christ's 
curse  have  they  both,"  he  breaks  out,  "  and  say 
ye  amen,  non  sine  merito,  and  but  ye  dare  say  so, 
think  so,  think  so  !  "  At  last  the  buckhorn  arrived  on 
Candlemas  even — "  better  late  than  never,"  said  the 

1  Shillingford's  Letters,  146.       2  Ibid.  9.       3  Ibid.  23,  150. 


xi  THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH  349- 

irritated  mayor.  "  That  day  was  I  at  Lambeth  with 
my  lord  at  mass,  and  offered  my  candle  to  my  lord's 
blessed  hand,  I  kneeling  adown  offering  my  candle. 
My  lord  with  laughing  cheer  upon  me  said  heartily 
'  Graunt  mercy,  mayor ; '  and  that  same  day  I 
abode  there  to  meat  by  my  said  lord's  command- 
ment ;  I  met  with  my  lord  at  high  table  end  com- 
ing to  meatward,  and  as  soon  as  ever  he  saw  me 
he  took  me  fast  by  the  hand  and  thanks  enough  to ; 
I  said  to  my  said  lord  it  was  too  simple  a  thing 
considering  his  estate  to  say  on  his  '  graunt  mercy,' 
but  if  I  had  been  at  home  at  this  fair  he  should 
have  had  better  stuff  and  other  things.  I  went 
forth  with  him  to  the  midst  of  the  hall,  he  stand- 
ing in  his  estate  against  the  fire  a  great  while,  and 
two  bishops,  the  two  chief  justices,  and  other  lords, 
knights  and  squires,  and  other  common  people  great 
multitude,  the  hall  full,  all  standing  afar  apart  from 
him,  I  kneeling  by  him,  and  after  recommendation 
I  moved  him  of  our  matter  shortly  as  time  asked." 
He  closed  this  argument  against  the  prelate's  mal- 
practices in  his  most  graceful  manner — "  I  in  my 
leave-taking  saying  these  words,  '  My  lord  have  pity 
and  mercy  upon  that  poor  city,  Jesus  vidit  civitatem 
et  flevit  super  earn"  l 

But  amid  all  the  fashions  of  the  chancellor's  court 
the  mayor  never  for  a  moment  lost  the  sense  of  his 
own  dignity  as  the  representative  of  a  free  city. 
Deferential  and  scrupulous  in  paying  the  grave 
courtesies  of  an  exact  formality,  Shillingford  was 
inflexible  in  all  that  lay  beyond  mere  ceremonial ; 

1  Shillingford's  Letters,  37,  38. 


350          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

for,  as  he  said,  "  the  matter  toucheth  the  great 
commonalty  of  the  city  of  Exeter  as  well  as  him." 
"  The  said  mayor,"  he  writes  on  one  occasion,  "  con- 
ceived and  knew  right  well  that  his  said  lord  bishop 
took  unworthy,  as  he  might  right  well,  for  simple- 
ness  and  poverty  to  speak  or  entreat  with  him. 
Nevertheless  he  said,  such  simple  as  he  was,  he  was 
Mayor  of  Exeter."  In  every  dilemma  he  fell  back 
haughtily  on  his  own  "  simpleness,"  and  on  his  sub- 
jection to  the  town  council  at  home,  "  having  no 
power,  nor  nought  may  do,  say,  agree,  nor  assent, 
without  a  communication  had  with  my  fellowship 
—a  commonalty  which  is  hard  to  deal  with," 3  added 
the  artful  mayor,  with  a  humour  which  his  submissive 
subjects  at  Exeter  doubtless  fully  appreciated. 4 

We  may  safely  assume  that  great  labour  and  cost 
were  not  expended  without  some  serious  reason  by 
the  Exeter  citizens — a  community  of  hard-working 

1  Shillingforu's  Letters,  11,  47.  2  Ibid.  43,  45. 

3  Ibid.  32,  see  11,  14,  20. 

4  His     temper     towards     ecclesiastical    interference    and    his 
urbanity  in  argument  are   admirably  shown  in  a  letter  to  the 
bishop's  counsel.     The  rough  draft  of  the  letter  ends  with  a  fine 
outburst  of  anger.     "  We  would  fain  have   an  end,"   he  writes, 
and   goes  on  to  ask  how  it  was  possible  for  any  one  ever  to 
conceive  that  "  John  Shillyng,  for   no  dread  of  great   words  of 
malice,  disclaunders,  language,  writings,  nor  setting  up   of  bulls 
bo  that  intent  to  rebuke  me  and  to  make  me  dull  to  labour  for  the 
right  that  I  am  sworn  to,  for  truly  I  will  not  be  so  rebuked  nor 
dulled,  but  the  more  boldlier."     But  he  struck  out  this  vigorous 
passage  in  the  second  draft  in  favour  of  a  less  belligerent  sentence 
— "  for  ye  may  fully  conceive  that  my  fellows  and  I  would  fain 
have  a  good  end  and  peace,  praying  you  to  apply  your  good  will 
and  favour  to  the  same."     Shillingford's  Letters,  25. 


xi  THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH  351 

practical  traders,  who  knew  the  value  both  of  their 
time  and  their  money.  And  in  the  mayor's  accounts 
of  the  proceedings  in  London  we  can  gather  up  the 
long  list  of  grievances  which  had  gone  on  accumulat- 
ing within  the  walls  of  this  little  city  between 
Church  and  State,  till  the  inhabitants  found  themselves 
ranged  in  two  hostile  armies,  to  either  of  which  sur- 
render meant  ruin  and  enslavement. 

(l)  The  most  burning  question  at  issue  was  the 
right  of  arrest  of  the  bishop's  tenants,  or  within 
the  ecclesiastical  precincts.  Among  many  other 


Lucays,  tenant  of  the  said  bishop,  the  most,  or  one 
of  the  most,  misgoverned  men  of  all  the  city  of 
Exeter,  or  of  all  the  shire  afterward,"  who  made  a 
fray  upon  a  townsman  at  the  very  door  of  the  Guild 
Hall,  and  wThen  the  sergeant  seized  him  "  brake 
the  arrest  and  went  his  way "  into  the  church, 
pursued  by  the  two  Serjeants.  The  stewards  of 
the  city  who  followed  with  the  king's  mace  to  keep 
the  king's  peace  found  the  church  doors  shut  upon 
them,  and  the  prisoner  "  violently  with  strong 
hand  taken  away  from  them  "  ;  and  various  clerks 
and  ministers  of  the  church,  by  order  of  the  dean 
and  chapter,  fell  on  them  with  door-bars,  swords, 
daggers,  long- knives,  and  "  Irish  skenes,"  so  that 
"  both  stewards  and  Serjeants  stood  in  despair  of  their 
lives,  and  scarce  escaped  out  of  the  church  with  their 
lives." :  This  was  the  mayor's  story.  The  bishop 
on  his  part  said  that  Hugh  Lucas  was  an  innocent 
man,  who  was  driven  into  the  cathedral  during 
1  Shillingford's  Letters,  52-3.  -  Ibid.  78. 


352          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

divine  service  by  the  turbulent  mob  of  burghers 
brandishing  "  swords,  daggers,  and  other  invasive 
weapons,"  and  intent  only  on  wickedness  and  misrule.1 
Then  again  one  of  the  bishop's  servants  who  had  struck 
a  townsman  in  the  eye  with  a  dagger  almost  unto 
death,  could  not  be  punished  because  he  had  been 
standing  within  the  Close  gate,  between  the  cemetery 
and  the  city.  "  Also  ofttimes  the  mayor  hath  not 
dared  do  the  law  and  execution  thereof.  .  .  for  now 
almost  every  mantaketh  colour  by  my  lord"  the  bishop. 
If  any  riotous  person  made  a  fray,  he  would  run  off  and 
"  take  the  church  late ; "  if  a  man  was  arrested  on 
Saturday,  "  he  must  be  delivered  to  make  my  lord's 
work  "  on  Sunday,2  and  by  such  devices  both  men  and 
women  "  by  whom  the  mayor  is  rebuked  "  got  off  scot 
free.  A  compromise  had  been  made  that  the  city  officers 
should  make  no  arrests  in  church  or  cemetery  from 
the  ceasing  of  Our  Lady  bell  to  the  end  of  Com- 
pline, but  the  chapter  later  laid  this  against  them 
in  evidence  that  they  had  no  right  ever  to  make 
any  arrest  there,  "  which  is  to  the  said  mayor  and 
commonalty  great  vexation,  hurt,  and  hindering ; 
and  to  misgoverned  men,  rioters,  and  breakers  of 
the  peace  great  boldness." 3  The  mayor  alleged 
that  it  was  impossible  to  keep  order  in  face  of 
privileges  which  rendered  the  clergy  and  their  tenants 
practically  independent  of  the  law.  "  Night  walk- 
ing, evil  language,  visao-ing,  shouldering,  and  all 

O7  O          o      '  O        O'  O ' 

riotous  rule"  went    on  unchecked,    seeing   that   the 

mayor    "  could    no    longer    rule   the    King's    people 

after  his  laws,  nor  do  right   as  he  is  sworn  to,  for 

1  Shillingford's  Letters,  97.        "  Ibid.  53.      3  Ibid.  66,  10,  94. 


xi          THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH         353 

dread  of  iny  lord." l  Just  outside  St.  Peter's  Close 
stood  a  well-known  tavern,  and  the  canons  who 
owned  the  Broad  Gate  kept  its  wicket  open  al- 
most all  the  night,  "  out  of  which  wicket  into  which 
tavern  cometh  the  great  part  of  all  the  rioters  into 
the  Close,  priests  and  others,"  said  the  townspeople, 
and  there  made  sleep  impossible  the  whole  night 
long  to  the  neighbours.  The  canons  however 
held  that  the  "mayor  and  such  dreadful  people  of 
his  commonalty  be  the  misgoverned  people  and 
incomers  that  they  spoke  of."  According  to  the 
clerical  party  indeed  the  whole  municipal  body  was 
altogether  sunk  in  sin  ;  the  very  town  Serjeants  were 
"  wild  and  unreasonable  fellows,"  who  had  even  been 
heard  to  threaten  "  that  there  should  many  a  priest 
of  the  Close  of  Exeter  lose  his  head  once  of  midsummer 
even ; "  2  and  as  for  the  tavern,  it  was  wholly  the 
mayor's  business  to  keep  order  there,  unless  indeed, 
as  they  suggested,  it  was  he  himself  "  that  is  cause 
and  giver  of  example  to  all  such  misgovernance."3 
This  charge,  however,  which  the  chancellor  had  struck 
out  with  his  own  hands,  was  one  about  which  the 
mayor  did  not  greatly  trouble  himself.  "  As  touching 
the  great  venom  that  they  meaneth  of  my  living,"  he 
wrote  to  the  Fellowship,  "  I  take  right  nought  by  and 
say  sadly  ' si  recte  vivas'  etc,  and  am  right  merry 
and  fare  right  well,  ever  thanking  God  and  my 
own  purse.  And  I  lying  on  my  bed  at  the  writing 
of  this  right  early,  merrily  singing  a  merry  song,  and 
that  is  this  '  Come  no  more  at  our  house,  come,  come, 
come  ! '  I  will  not  die  nor  for  sorrow  nor  for  anger, 

1  Shillingford's  Letters,  53.         2  Ibid.  64.         3  Ibid.  93,  104. 

VOL.    I  A   A 


354          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

but  be  merry  and  fare  right  well,  while  I  have 
money ;  but  that  is  and  like  to  be  scarce  with  me, 
considering  the  business  and  cost  that  I  have  had 
and  like  to  have ;  and  yet  I  had  with  me  £20  and 
more  by  my  troth,  whereof  of  troth  not  right  much 
I  spend  yet,  but  like,  &c.  Construe  ye  what  ye  will." 1 

(2)  It  was  a  further  grievance  to  the  townspeople 
that    the    bishop    claimed    the    right    to   hold   both 
a   court    baron  and   leet   and   view    of  frankpledge, 
and  on   this  pretence   called  before  himself  various 
pleas  and  matters  that  should    have  been  tried  be- 
fore   the  mayor  and  bailiffs,  thus  covetously  gather- 
ing into    his  coffers  fines  on  which  they  themselves 
had  set  longing  eyes  ;  and  moreover  that  he  took  to 
himself  any  goods  seized  from   felons.2     There  had 
been  angry  feeling  over  the  case  of  one  John  Barton, 
whom  the  town  officers  pursued  for  robbing.     But  as 
it  was  a  church  that  he  had  robbed,  and  as  he  had 
hidden  the  stolen  goods  in  a  tenement  of  the  bishop's, 
the  ecclesiastics,  rather  than  see  justice  done  by  the 
secular  power,  had  shut  the  door  in  the  face  of  the 
municipal  officers,  and  had  hurried  off  the  sacrilegious 
thief  into  the  cathedral,  then  smuggled  him  out  into 
a  bakehouse,  and  so  conveyed  him  out  of  the  city ; 
while  the  stolen  goods  were  kept  with  a  strong  hand 
to  the  use  of  the  bishop,  "  to  great  hurt  and  hindering 
of  our  sovereign  lord  the  Kino-  and  the  said  mayor 
and  commonalty."  : 

(3)  In  all  towns  where  the  question  of  jurisdiction 
was   raised   between  the   townsfolk  and  the  Church 

1  Shillingf orcl's  Letters,  16.        2  Ibid.  pp.  10.  14.  91,  99,  104. 
3  ibid.  83-4. 


xr         THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHUKCH        355 

party  the  quarrel  about  coroner's  inquests  ran  high. 
Churchmen  and  laymen  alike  had  to  submit  to  the 
coroner's  inquest.  But  chapters  of  cathedrals  and 
monasteries  found  it  less  humiliating  to  admit  within 
their  precincts  an  officer  of  the  shire  than  the  town 
officer  sent  in  by  a  mayor  who  was  for  ever  keeping 
his  jealous  watch  at  their  gates.  On  the  other  hand, 
after  their  long  and  determined  struggle  to  be  freed 
from  foreign  interference,  the  towns  looked  with 
suspicion  on  the  appearance  within  their  walls  on  any 
pretext  whatever  of  any  official  of  the  shire.  In  Exeter 
as  elsewhere  the  city  coroner  claimed  "  to  corowne 
prisoners  dead  in  the  bishop's  prison,"  but  the  bishop 
flatly  refused  to  admit  into  the  precincts  any  officer 
save  the  coroner  of  Devonshire,  and  if  the  municipal 
coroners  on  hearing  of  a  prisoner's  death  appeared 
at  the  gates  of  the  Close,  they  were  turned  back  by 
"  servants  of  the  said  bishop,  and  by  his  com- 
mandment they  were  let  to  do  their  office  there  ; 
and  the  said  prisoners  so  dead  buried  uncoroned."  l 

(4)  There  was  also  as  might  be  expected  a  burning 
controversy  as  to  the  city  taxes.2     The  mayor  alleged 

1  Shillingford's    Letters,    83,     84,     99.      Compare     Norwich, 
Blomefield,  iii.  62.     In  Canterbury  the  murder  of  a  citizen  by  a 
waggoner  of  the  priory  in  1313  gave  rise  to  a  hot  dispute  as  to 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  city  coroner.     The  Convent  refused  him 
admittance  within  the  priory  gates,  smuggled  in  an  alien  coroner  to 
view  the  body,  and  then  had  it  buried  by  the  prior's  grooms.     The 
story  is  given  in  an  Inspeximus  of  Richard  the  Second ;  Muni- 
ments of  Canterbury. 

2  The  distribution  of  taxes  was  a  matter  of  special  arrange- 
ment in  the  different  towns.     By  the  request  of  the  canons  the 
ecclesiastical   tenants  at   Grimsby   were  not  tallaged  with   the 

A    A    2 


356          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

that  lie  and  his  deputies  had  been  accustomed  to 
collect  in  the  cathedral  precincts  a  certain  proportion 
of  the  King's  taxes,  the  ferm,  and  the  sums  needed 
for  general  town  expenses ;  and  Shillingford  sup- 
ported this  claim  before  the  lord  chancellor  by  "a 
long  rehearsal  thereof  from  King  Edward's  time  unto 
this  day,  how  and  under  what  form  it  was  done  of 
old  time."  1  Of  late  however  the  bishop's  tenants 
had  refused  to  come  to  the  Guild  Hall  and  have 
their  share  assessed,  "  by  the  commandment  of  the 
said  bishop  menacing  the  said  tenants  ....  to  put 
them  out  of  their  tenures.  And  so  they  durst  not 
come,  set,  nor  pay  as  they  have  been  wont  to  do."2 
The  bishop  justified  his  action  by  a  variety  of  argu- 
ments. The  King's  taxes  he  probably  could  not  dispute 

burgesses  (Madox,  270).  In  Leicester  the  tenants  of  the  Bishop's 
Fee  just  without  the  walls  did  suit  and  service  to  the  Bishop  of 
Lincoln  ;  a  compromise  had  been  made  in  1281  by  which  it 
was  decided  that  the  Bishop's  tenants  should  share  in  certain  com- 
mon expenses,  and  should  in  return  enjoy  the  franchises  and  free 
customs  which  had  been  won  by  the  Merchant  Guild  of  Leicester  ; 
but  while  the  burgesses  had  to  bear  the  charges  both  of  "  the 
community  of  the  town,"  and  "  the  community  of  the  guild,"  the 
bishop's  tenants  only  paid  for  such  matters  as  touched  "  the  com- 
munity of  the  guild,"  and  were  not  liable  for  the  general  town 
taxes.  (Gross,  ii.  140-1.)  As  early  as  1189  the  Guild  of 
Nottingham  obtained  the  right  to  raise  contributions  to  the  ferm 
rent  from  tenants  of  all  fees  whatsoever.  In  Norwich  this  was 
given  in  1229  (Norwich  Doc.,  Stanley  v.  Mayor,  etc.,  5,  6).  But 
the  question  of  collection  still  remained  a  burning  one,  and  the 
itinerant  justices  having  failed  in  1239  to  settle  matters  between 
the  convent  and  the  city,  the  King  himself  went  to  Norwich  to 
insist  011  an  agreement  in  1241.  (Blomefiekl,  iii.  46.)  See 
]>.  357,  note  4. 

1   Shillingford's  Letters,  p.  13.  2  Ibid.  79. 


xi  THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH  357 

with  any  show  of  reason.  But  with  regard  to  the 
ferm  he  employed  a  comprehensive  mode  of  reason- 
ing which  struck  at  the  very  foundation  of  all 
authority  of  mayor  or  commonalty ;  for  that,  he  said, 
the  town  had  no  power  whatever  to  collect,  since 
Exeter  had  neither  mayor  nor  bailiffs  nor  any  fee- 
ferm  at  all  till  the  time  of  Henry  the  Third,  and  even 
then  the  grant  was  illegally  made  by  Richard  of 
Almayne,  who  really  possessed  no  rights  in  the 
borough.1  For  the  taxes  connected  with  municipal 
expenses,  or  as  the  mayor  called  them,  the  "  citizens' 
spending,"  he  asserted  that  his  tenants  were  not 
legally  responsible.  In  any  case  he  differed  altogether 
from  the  citizens  in  his  definition  of  the  "  ancient 
custom  "  by  which  the  payment  of  the  taxes  should 
be  regulated,2  and  complained  that  his  tenants  had 
not  been  duly  summoned  to  take  part  in  the  assess- 
ment, and  "  of  malice  "  had  been  charged  in  their 

absence  "  an   importable    sum so  that  there 

would  have  remained  in  the  mayor's  hands  a  great 
sum  thereof  above  the  said  dime,"  like  as  there  had 
remained  in  other  mayors'  hands  as  much  as  £7  or 
£5,  sometimes  more  or  less.3 

(5)  In  one  of  the  most  burdensome  duties  of  town 
life,  the  keeping  of  watch  and  ward,  the  depend- 
ents of  St.  Peter's  fee  had  sought  to  throw  the 
whole  labour  on  the  citizens.4  The  bishop's  tenants 

1  Shillingford's  Letters,  96.  2  Ibid.  pp.  98,  108. 

3  For  the  mayor's  defence,  see  p.  x.  107-9. 

4  The  tenants  of  the  hospital  of  S.  John  in  Worcester  refused 
to  aid  in  tallages,  to  submit  to  the  assize  of  bread  and  beer,  under 
the  town's  officers,  and  to  keep  watch  and  ward.     In  1221  they 


358          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

when  they  were  summoned  "  to  come  and  keep  the 
watch  and  the  peace  came  not.  .  .  but  they*  were 
forbode  upon  a  great  pain,  and  charged  if  any  of  the 
mayor's  officers  entered  into  any  tenement  of  the 
bishop  for  to  warn  any  man  to  come  to  the  watch, 
that  they  should  break  his  head."  l  The  bishop  in  fact 
had  ordered  that  a  fine  of  40s. — a  fine  quite  beyond 
the  power  of  an  ordinary  tradesman  to  pay — should  be 
levied  from  any  one  who  dared  to  serve  on  the  watch. 
"  Whereupon  the  mayor  made  right  great  wayward 
language  to  them.  The  mayor  said  waywardly  he 
would  do  more,  he  would  make  levy  both  of  the 
citizens'  spending  and  the  fee-farm,  and  that  he  would 
well  avow,  and  bade  them  of  all  to  inform  the  Justice 
thereof,  and  that  lie  would  do  the  same  ;  and  so  the 

1  •   1     Jj   9 

mayor  did. 

(6)  "  The  most  disclaunderous  article  "  of  all,  ac- 
cording to  the  bishop,  was  the  question  of  the  assize 
of  wine,  ale,  and  bread.  While  the  mayor  claimed 
the  assize  over  the  bishop's  demesne,  the  bishop 
asserted  that  such  assize  "  of  time  that  no  mind  is  " 
belonged  wholly  to  the  bishop  himself,  and  in  no  wise 

were  ordered  to  do  all  these  things.  (Select  Pleas  of  the  Crown, 
•Selden  Soc.  p.  97.)  In  1331  Norwich  resisted  the  handing 
over  of  three  houses  to  the  prior  and  convent  "  for  that  a  very 
great  part  of  the  same  city  which  is  inhabited,  is  in  the  hands  of 
the  prior  and  convent  and  of  other  religious  persons,  whereby  the 
inhabitants  are  at  their  distress,  and  cannot  be  tallagecl  to  the 
tallages  and  aids  of  the  lord  the  King  and  of  the  city  aforesaid 
as  tenants  should  be,  nor  can  they  be  in  assizes,  juries,  and  recog- 
nizances, whereby  others  dwelling  in  the  same  city  are  burdened 
and  grieved  more  than  usual  by  such  gifts  and  assignments." 
(Norwich  Documents,  Stanley  v.  Mayor,  pr.  1884,  24,  25). 
1  Shillingford's  Letters,  44-45.  2  Ibid.  52. 


xi         THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH        359 

to  the  mayor.1  This  matter  was  partly  a  question  of 
finance,  and  partly  a  question  of  order.  So  long  as 
wine  was  first  smuggled  in  by  the  bishop's  tenants,  and 
then  sold  in  the  houses  of  the  canons  and  in  the  pre- 
cincts, against  "  the  ordinances  and  cry  "  made  by  the 
mayor,  the  town  lost  the  customs  which  ought  to  be 
paid  at  the  port  of  Exniouth  on  every  pipe  of  wine  ; 
and  as  the  ferm  was  paid  out  of  these  customs,  the 
bishop's  tenants  escaped  their  share  of  the  rent,2  and 
left  the  whole  burden  to  be  borne  by  the  citizens. 
The  corporation  further  lost  the  "  wine  gavell "  paid 
on  all  wine  sold  by  retail  in  the  town.  Moreover 
fraudulent  sellers  went  unpunished ;  for  instead  of 
allowing  the  town  officers  to  cast  into  the  canal  wine 
which  was  condemned  by  the  municipality  as  "cor- 
rupt and  not  whole  for  man's  body,  damnable  and 
which  should  ])&  damned,"  the  bishop's  tenants  actu- 
ally found  means  to  gather  from  it  profits  of  iniquity; 
"  the  which  corrupt  wine  hath  been  carried  to  Tops- 
ham  and  there  shipped,  and  so  led  to  Bordeaux,  there 
to  be  put  and  melled  among  new  wine,  as  it  shall  be 
well  proved  if  need  be."  In  the  same  way  the  weigh- 
ing of  bread  was  resisted,  and  the  due  testing  of 
beer,  and  the  authority  of  the  city  set  at  nought. 

(7)  There  was  also  a  quarrel  about  who  was  to  get 
the  profits  from  increased  rents  of  stalls  and  shops 
and  houses  which  opened  on  the  market-place,3  and 
whose  value  altogether  depended  on  the  growth  of 
the  market  and  the  town  trade.  Both  the  munici- 
pality and  the  church  would  willingly  have  seized 

1  Shillingford's  Letters,  91-2,  104-5. 

*  Ibid.  92.  3  Ibid.  100,  109. 


360          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUKY      CHAP. 

the  "  unearned  increment."  The  convent  had  set  up 
stalls  and  booths  "  on  the  ground  of  the  said  mayor 
and  citizens  without  licence  of  them  asked " — great 
stalls  sixty  feet  long  and  over  three  feet  broad,  where 
of  old  time  there  had  only  been'  shop  windows,  "  the 
leaves  thereof  going  inward,  and  none  other  ne  never 
were."  The  bishop  answered  that  any  one  in  the 
town  might  put  stalls  outside  his  own  house  if  he 
chose  ;  and  in  any  case,  he  added,  with  consistent 
denial  of  the  authority  of  the  corporation,  it  was  a 
matter  to  be  punished  by  the  King,  if  at  all,  and  not 
by  the  commonalty.  When  the  townsmen  further 
urged  that  they  had  always  "  of  time  that  no  mind 
is  "  held  their  fish-market  in  Fish  Street,  a  sort  of 
debateable  land,  which  lay  outside  the  cemetery  but 
within  the  precincts  of  the  close,  but  that  now  the  dean 
and  chapter  had  refused  to  let  the  market  be  held 
there,  and  had  themselves  made  stairs  and  gardens 
encroaching  on  the  street,  which  moreover  cut  off 
the  mayor's  way  to  the  town  walls  and  towers,  the 
bishop  answered  in  quibbling  wise  that  as  there  never 
was  such  a  street  as  Fish  Street,  no  market  could  well 
be  held  in  it,  nor  could  it  be  encroached  upon : 
wrhat  the  town  chose  to  call  Fish  Street,  the  prelate 
explained,  was  in  his  nomenclature  S.  Martin's  or  the 
Canon's  Street.1 

(8)  As  in  other  fortified  towns,  where  the  wall  of 
the  ecclesiastical  precincts  ran  side  by  side  with  the 
city  wall,2  endless  questions  were  raised  as  to  the 

1  Shillingford's  Letters,  84-5,  99. 

2  En  Canterbury  also  the  Convent  was  bent  on  getting  posses- 
sion of  that  part  of  the  covered  way  which  lay  along  its  territory. 


xr  THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH  361 

management  and  repair  of  walls  and  towers,  and  the 
control  of  the  city  gates,  and  the  use  of  the  narrow 
way  that  ran  inside  the  wall  for  the  movement  of 
troops,  the  carriage  of  ammunition,  and  the  ap- 
proach of  the  city  authorities,  or  of  workmen- 
questions  which  in  time  of  war  or  of  civil  revolt 
were  of  vital  consequence,  and  which  even  in  quiet 
days  brought  frequent  trouble.  Each  side  claimed 
the  lane,  and  the  mayor  and  corporation  objected  to 
the  canons  who,  having  back  doors  opening  from  the 
gardens  into  it,  had  made  it  into  a  mere  rubbish  heap, 
so  "  that  no  man  therein  may  well  ride  nor  go  nor 
lead  carriage  to  the  walls,  to  the  great  hurt  and 
hindering  of  the  mayor  and  commonalty ;  "  and  who 
had  further  broken  up  the  great  drain  which  had 
been  made  to  draw  off  rain  water  from  the  town  and 
had  carried  away  the  stones.  Moreover  the  common- 
alty had  spent  £20  on  building  a  great  tower  "  and 
right  a  strong  door  with  lock  and  key  made  thereto 
and  fast  shut,  to  this  intent  there  to  bring  in  stuff 
for  the  war  and  defence  of  the  city  and  other  thing- 
more  of  the  said  city  there  to  be  kept  strong,  safe, 
and  sure ;  but  whenever  this  lock,  and  those  of 

and  the  city  wall  itself  so  far  as  it  touched  the  Cathedral 
precincts.  Their  first  step  was  taken  in  1160,  and  their  final 
success  was  not  assured  till  1492,  when  the  city  resigned  to  the 
Convent  the  wall  and  covered  way  between  Burgate  and  North- 
gate  with  the  waste  land  adjoining,  and  the  chapter  was  allowed 
to  make  a  postern  and  to  build  a  bridge  across  the  f  oss.  Such  an 
arrangement  was  of  course  only  possible  at  a  time  when  peace 
with  France,  and  the  close  of  civil  wars  and  riots  at  home  had 
freed  the  town  from  danger  of  siege  or  revolution.  (Lit.  Cant., 
i.  60-2,  iii.  318-20.)  See  also  Davies'  Walks  through  York, 
11,  12. 


362          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

various  postern  doors,  were  repaired  "  they  have 
been  right  spitefully  broke  up  by  the  bishop,  and 
dean  and  chapter,"  and  the  door  of  the  tower  left  at 
all  times  open  so  that  the  canons  could  throw  their 
rubbish  into  it.  And  finally,  the  canons  having 
fitted  one  of  the  town  gates  with  a  new  lock  and 
key  of  their  own,  by  night  and  day  "  full  ungodly 
carriage  have  been  led  in  and  out."  "  At  which  gate 
also  ofttime  have  been  great  affrays  and  debate, 
and  like  to  have  been  manslaughter,  and  divers 
night-walkers  and  rioters  coming  out  at  that  gate 
into  the  city,  and  there  have  made  many  affrays, 
assaults,  and  other  riotous  misgovernance  against  the 
peace,  and  broken  out  over  the  town  walls,  and  much 
more  mischief  like  to  fall  by  that  gate  without  better 
remedy  had."  To  all  these  charges  the  canons 
answered  that  the  lane  was  their  own  property,  nor 
had  they  ever  broken  any  gutter  there  nor  thrown 

J  \j       O 

rubbish  out ;  and  as  to  the  wall  it  was  the  commonalty 
which  "  by  their  frowardness  to  evil  intent,"  had  let 
it  fall  down  and  had  not  repaired  it  "in  any  time 
this  hundred  year ; "  while  the  towers  stood  on 
ecclesiastical  ground,  "  and  the  bishop  sometime  had 
his  prison  in  that  tower."  l 

(9)  The  common  use  of  the  cathedral  became  a 
further  subject  of  wrangling,  as  the  corporation  pressed 
for  sole  authority  within  the  tower  inclosure  and  the 
ecclesiastical  party  retorted  by  stricter  protection  of 
its  own  peculiar  property.  It  had  been  the  custom 
at  fair-time  to  set  up  booths  in  the  cemetery  and  even 
within  the  church  ;  but  the  dean  and  chapter  now 
1  Shillingford's  Letters,  88,  89,  16. 


xi          THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH         363 

began  to  demand  tolls,  especially  from  tlie  jewellers' 
stalls.  This  the  town  angrily  resented,  and  the  matter 
was  referred  to  arbitrators,  who  decided  that  the  chap- 
ter had  no  right  to  any  such  tolls  within  church  or 
cemetery,  "  for  anger  and  evil  will  whereof  the  said 
dean  and  chapter  by  their  ministers  and  servants, 
ever  since  have  put  out  j  all  such  merchants  and 
merchandize  contrary  and  against  the  old  rule  and 
use,  and  to  the  destruction  of  the  fairs  and  markets."1 
Moreover  the  canons  proceeded  to  lock  the  doors 
of  a  cloister  adjoining  the  church  which  was  accord- 
ing to  the  citizens  "  a  common  way  for  the  mayor 
and  commonalty"  into  the  cathedral,  and  "a  place 
of  prayer  and  devotion  to  pray  for  all  souls  whose 
bones  lay  buried  there."  It  was  in  no  sense,  said 
the  ecclesiastics,  a  "common  way"  of  the  towns- 
people ;  it  was  walled  and  glazed  and  had  a  chapter 
house  and  library,  and  the  canons  were  much  offended 
that  "  ungodly  ruled  people,  most  custumably  young 
people  of  the  said  commonalty  within  the  said  cloister 
have  exercised  unlawful  games  as  the  top,  '  queke,' 
'  penny  prykke,'  and  most  at  tennis,  by  the  which 
the  walls  of  the  said  cloister  have  been  defouled  and 
the  glass  windows  all  to  brost,  as  it  openly  sheweth, 
contrary  to  all  good  and  ghostly  goodness,  and  directly 
against  all  good  policy,  and  against  all  good  rule  within 
the  said  cloister  to  suffer  any  such  misruled  people 
to  have  common  entry."  The  mayor  still  asserted 
however  that  "  within  time  out  of  mind  there  was  no 
such  cloister  there  but  all  open  church  here,  and  a 
common  way  into  the  said  church."  As  to  the 
1  Shillingforrl's  Letters,  93,  94. 


364          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

games,  "  the  mayor,  bailiffs,  and  commonalty  say  that 
they  by  the  law  be  not  bound  thereto  to  answer."  l 

Amid  the  endless  and  vulgar  details  of  all  this 
intricate  quarrel,  Shillingford  held  fast  to  the  prin- 
ciples which  he  saw  plainly  were  of  the  very  essence 
of  any  true  municipal  life.  Charters  of  freedom  were 
of  no  use  if  in  every  question  of  trade,  of  police,  of 
finance,  of  public  order,  ecclesiastical  privilege  stepped 
in  and  brought  all  government  save  its  own  to 
an  end.  All  discussions  from  first  to  last  invariably 
came  back  to  the  one  central  problem — the  right  of 
arrest — and  here  the  mayor  was  determined  that  no 
persuasion  should  induce  him  to  abate  one  jot  of 
the  city  claims.  He  would  give  no  assent  to  the 
bishop's  arguments  drawn  from  an  alleged  friendly 
agreement  which  laid  down  that  the  town  officers 
should  make  arrests  in  the  cemetery  only,  and  that 
they  might  not  arrest  there  the  canons  or  men  wear- 
ing the  religious  habit  or  their  ministers  and  ser- 
vants, and  steadfastly  denied  that  any  such  writing 
had  ever  been  known  or  proved.  Henceforth  he 
would  not  hear  of  concession  or  compromise ; 
"  it  would  seem  if  I  so  did  that  I  had  doubt  of  our 
right  where  I  have  right  none,"  2  as  he  said  to  the 
lord  chief  justice.  When  "  my  lord  himself  spake 
darkly  of  right  old  charters,"  and  conjured  him  to 
make  an  end  of  the  matter,  "  and  if  I  so  did  I 
should  be  chronicled ; "  the  mayor  still  remained 
firm.3  "  I  held  my  own,  I  had  matter  enough."  He 
was  especially  pressed  in  sundry  points  by  the  lord 

1  Shillingforcl's  Letters,  pp.  85,  86,  101,  110. 

2  Ibid.  9.  3  Ibid.  20. 


xi  THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH  365 

chancellor,  who  as  a  learned  man  made  merry  over 
the  tale  of  Vespasian's  connexion  with  the  city,  a 
piece  of  history  upon  which  the  mayor  did  not  greatly 
care  to  dwell ; l  and  as  former  canon  of  Exeter  cathe- 
dral he  was  ready  at  times  to  laugh  over  the  stories 
of  his  Exeter  days,  and  of  the  exciting  arrests  and 
lively  disputes  which  he  so  well  remembered ;  "all 
it  was  to  tempt  me  with  laughing  cheer,"  said  the 
watchful  mayor.2  "  At  the  last  fell  to  matter  of 
sadness,  and  they  spake  of  God's  house,  St.  Peter's 
Church  of  Exeter,  and  my  lord  spake  of  his  house, 
his  hall,  and  the  justice  the  same,  how  loath  they 
would  be  to  make  arrests  therein,  and  said  that  St. 
Peter's  Church  was  God's  house  and  His  hall,  &c., 
and  made  many  reasons  to  bring  in  absence  of 
arrests.3  They  were  answered  as  God  would  give 
us  grace."  The  chancellor,  as  was  natural  from  his 
old  association  with  the  chapter,  was  especially 
anxious  to  bring  about  a  compromise  favourable  to 
the  church.  He  proposed  that  the  city  should  have 
the  view  of  frankpledge  over  the  whole  city  and 
precincts,  and  should  only  make  arrests  ordered  by 
that  court ;  and  on  the  other  hand  the  bishop  "  to 
have  his  courts  of  his  own  tenants  and  to  hold  pleas 
of  greater  sum  than  the  court  baron,  forty  shillings, 
and  spake  of  forty  marks.  Upon  this  mean  he 
sticked  fast  and  thought  it  was  reasonable,  and 

1  Shillingford's  Letters,  12.  2  Ibid.  10,  19. 

3  The  Commons  had  perhaps  some  reason  to  ask  in  1371  that 
none  but  a  layman  should  have  charge  of  the  seal.  (Campbell's 
Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors,  i.  262.)  This  system,  however 
only  lasted  till  1378,  and  in  the  next  hundred  years,  out  of  35 
chancellors  only  eight  were  laymen. 


366          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP 

ever  asked  of  me  divers  times  what  I  would  say, 
thereto,  all  as  I  conceived  to  tempt  me,  and  to 
consent  to  a  mean ;  and  then  I  said,  my  lord,  if  it 
please  you,  ye  shall  have  me  excused  to  answer, 
for  though  methought  that  it  were  a  mean  reason- 
able I  dare  not  say  yea,  though  I  have  power,  for 
the  matter  toucheth  a  great  commonalty  as  well  as 
me,  and  so  that  I  dare  not  say  unto  time  that  I 
have  spoke  with  my  fellowship  at  home."  1 

For  two  years  the  discussions  dragged  on  at  one 
place  or  another,  till  in  1448  an  agreement  was  made 
between  Town  and  Church  "  by  mean  and  mediation 
of  Thomas   Courtney,  Earl  of  Devonshire,  and  of  Sir 
William  Bonville,  knight,"  and  was    four  days  later 
(Dec.  16th,  1448)  confirmed  by  the  Chief  Justice  of 
Common    Pleas    and    another   Judge.       Exeter    was 
forgiven   the    enormous   damages  demanded    by  the 
convent  for   the    illegal  arrests  made   by  the   town 
officers  within    the    precincts    two    years    before— 
damages    amounting    to    £1,000,   or   a    sum    which 
must  have    been  equal   to  many  years'    revenue    of 
the    borough.       For   the    rest    the    arbitration    re- 
asserted in  definite  terms  the  division  of  authority 
against  which  the  city  had  so  vigorously  protested. 
The  bishop  was  left  absolute    lord    of  his   fee.     All 
he    desired — court  baron,  leet,  view  of  frankpledge, 
a  rule  without  any  disturbance  of  the  mayor,  bailiffs, 
or  coroners  of  the  city,  and  with  absolute   freedom 
from  distress    or    arrest,   was    secured    to    him    for 
ever.     He  was  only  bound  not  to  arrest  any  of  the 
mayor's  subjects  in  his  precincts.     As  for  the  mayor 
1  Shillingford's  Letters,  11. 


xi  THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH  367 

and  commonalty  they  retained  their  ancient  powers 
in  the  city,  but  might  make  no  arrests  on  church 
lands.  They  might  summon  the  bishop's  tenants 
to  keep  the  watch  in  their  turn,  and  might  fine 
them  if  they  refused,  making  a  levy  on  their  goods 
found  without  the  Fee.  In  the  king's  taxes  and  the 
city  murage  the  church  tenants  were  to  take  their 
share,  but  it  was  to  be  raised  by  their  own  officers. 
Lastly  the  mayor  and  bailiffs  might  have  their 
maces  carried  before  them  in  the  cathedral  pre- 
cincts without  disturbance.1  It  was  decreed  that 
no  new  charters  were  to  disturb  this  arrangement ; 2 
and  hence  forward  the  chapter  guarded  its  privileges 
with  accurate  solicitude.3 

This  "  final "  settlement  gave  to  the  city  all  that 
any  lawyer  could  have  given  it  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
for  lawyers  after  all  could  only  declare  the  legal 
principles  that  had  been  laid  down  in  times  when 
the  power  in  the  State  had  been  very  differently 
balanced,  and  the  fashioning  of  the  law  in  these 
matters  had  lain  in  the  hands  of  ecclesiastics.  States- 
men like  the  chancellor  moreover  could  discuss  the 
question  with  philosophic  calm  ;  in  the  greater  con- 
cerns of  national  administration  the  problem  between 

1  Shillingford,  136-140. 

2  In  1463  when  Edward  granted  the  city  fresh  franchises  and 
powers  he  exempted  the  close  from  civic  jurisdiction.     Freeman's 
Exeter,  91. 

3  In  1452  the  judges  held  their  assize  in  the  hall  of  the  bishop's 
palace  ;  the  King  being  in  the  town  it  was  proved  to  him  that 
holding  of  assize  in  the  bishop's  hall  was  a  breach  of  the  privi- 
leges of  the  church  ;  two  traitors  who  had  been  condemned  were 
therefore  pardoned  by  the  King.     Ibid.  89. 


368          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

Church  and  State  had  been  decided  for  them  in  the 
days  of  Henry  the  Second,  by  methods  as  rough 
and  ready  as  any  which  burghers  of  later  times  had 
attempted  ;  and  they  therefore  now  looked  at  the 
townspeople's  troubles  from  afar  off.  The  pressure  of 
difficulty  had  changed,  and  whereas  it  was  the  people 
who  had  once  gained  profit  from  ecclesiastical  immu- 
nities, while  kings  and  statesmen  had  to  bear  the 
violence  of  the  battle  for  order  and  the  authority  of 
government,  now  the  brunt  of  the  fight  fell  on 
the  common  folk,  while  rulers  at  Westminster  sat 
at  ease  and  calmly  recounted  the  old  arguments 
which  their  greater  predecessors  had  found  it 
necessary  to  repudiate  utterly  three  hundred  years 
Itefore. 

For  the  experience  of  Exeter  was  by  no  means 
exceptional  or  rare,  and  if  we  turn  to  the  history  of 
Canterbury  or  Norwich  we  find  the  same  record  of 
centuries  of  passionate  strife,  with  fire  and  pillage 
and  murder  and  costly  processes  of  law  ending  in 
yet  fiercer  antagonism.  To  multiply  instances  would 
prove  wearisome  repetition,  but  considering  the  great 
importance  which  these  questions  had  for  the  medi- 
aeval burgher,  and  the  gravity  of  their  results  in 
later  history,  it  may  be  well  to  note  in  the  history  of 
another  town  how,  with  a  few  superficial  differences, 
the  fundamental  difficulty  was  always  the  same. 

In  Canterbury,  as  we  might  expect,  things  were 
yet  more  complicated  than  in  Exeter,  and  the 
situation  of  the  citizens  was  one  of  considerable 
perplexity.  From  almost  every  considerable  holding 
in  the  town  some  religious  corporation  claimed  a  rent 


xi          THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH         369 

charge  which  had  to  be  deducted  in  the  city  accounts. 
The  Convent  of  S.  Gregory  declared  itself  to  be  in  the 
shire  of  Kent  and  outside  the  city  bounds,  and  as  late 
as  1515  asserted  its  freedom  by  refusing  to  take  its 
share  in  the  payment  of  a  subsidy ;  when  the  mayor 
levied  a  distress  the  convent  sued  him  for  trespass, 
and  a  long  and  costly  lawsuit  followed.1  The  hos- 
pitals of  S.  Nicholas  at  Harbledown  and  of  S.  John 
Northgate  were  exempted  by  royal  charter  from 
all  tallages,  aids,  and  contributions ;  and  their  lands 
and  woods  in  the  hundred  of  AVestgate  were  made 
free  from  contribution  for  the  defence  of  the  coast.2 
But  these  trifling  grievances  scarcely  came  into 
notice  beside  the  troubles  caused  by  greater  ecclesi- 
astical powers — the  Priory  of  Christ  Church,  the  Con- 
vent of  S.  Augustine's,  and  the  Archbishop.  The  old 
dissensions  that  had  once  disturbed  their  common 
harmony  had  all  been  appeased  by  means  of  a  com- 
plete separation  between  the  property  and  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  Archbishop  and  the  Convent  of  Christ 
Church,  which  had  been  finally  arranged  somewhere 
about  1260  ;  and  by  an  agreement  which  was  con- 
cluded about  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century,  be- 
tween S.  Augustine's  and  Christ  Church,  as  to  their 
special  disputes  about  ecclesiastical  prerogatives,  or 
about  the  rights  of  the  convents  on  the  high  sea,  on 
the  quay  at  Fordwich,  in  the  common  meadows  at 
Sturry,  and  in  the  neighbouring  harbours  of  Sandwich 
which  belonged  to  Christ  Church,  and  Stonor  which 
belonged  to  S.  Augustine's.3  But  in  the  general 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  150.  2  Ibid.  169. 

3  Lit.  Cant,  i.,  Ixi.     Sandwich  and  Stonor  were  the  two  ports 
VOL.    I  B    B 


370          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

peacemaking  the  city  was  left  out,  and  the  city  had 
its  own  separate  grievances  against  archbishop,  abbot, 
and  prior. 

I.  For  the  archbishop  possessed  certain  rights  which 
were  exceedingly  inconvenient  to  the  borough.  In 
case  of  a  quarrel,  he  could  refuse  to  ordain  Canterbury 
men,  to  confirm  Canterbury  children,  or  to  allow  the 
offices  of  the  Church  to  sick  people,  unless  the  towns- 
folk swore  to  obey  him  in  all  things.  He  could  forbid 
his  tenants  to  join  in  the  great  city  festival  of  the 
Translation  of  S.  Thomas.  He  was  known  to  have 
cited  140  of  the  chief  citizens  to  appear  before  him 
at  Charing,  twelve  leagues  away  from  Canterbury 
and  without  proper  victuals,  whereas  by  custom  they 
should  be  summoned  to  appear  in  their  own  cathe- 
dral. Such  \vere  the  complaints  which  the  struggling 
town  had  to  make  in  1290.1  His  borough  of  Staple- 
gate,  just  opposite  the  palace  and  within  the  city 
boundaries,  was  surrounded  by  a  wall  and  exempt  from 
the  jurisdiction  of  both  the  city  and  the  county ; 2 
even  the  royal  writ  did  not  run  in  it.  Since  his 
tenants  in  "Westgate  and  Wingham  were  free  from  the 
town  authorities,  when  Westgate  men  took  to  building 
their  houses  so  near  the  river  that  the  stream  was 
driven  against  the  city  walls  with  such  force  as  to  make 
them  fall,  the  town  was  helpless  to  check  the  evil,  and 
complained  as  loudly  of  the  wrong  in  1467  3  as  it  had 
done  in  1290.  Or  when  Wingham  men  intercepted 

of  London  and  therefore  of  considerable  consequence.  For  the 
history  of  Stonor  see  Boys'  Sandwich,  552-5,  658-62. 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  172-3. 

2  Ibid.  150.  3  Ibid.  172-3,  141. 


xi  THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHUECH  371 

for  their  market  the  provisions  which  were  on  the 
road  to  Canterbury,  and  thus  both  diminished  the 
tolls  of  provisions  taken  at  the  Canterbury  gates  and 
increased  the  price  of  food,  the  corporation  had  no 
remedy,  for  the  archbishop's  right  to  hold  a  market 
at  Wingham  could  not  be  denied.1  Moreover  the 
Whitstaple  fishermen,  also  tenants  of  the  archbishop, f 
were  supported  by  him  in  1431  in  their  claim  of  a 
right  to  sell  fish  in  the  city  free  from  any  toll  save  a 
farthing  for  each  person;  and  in  1481  when  the 
fishwives  refused  to  pay  toll  or  to  sell  in  a  new 
market  built  by  the  citizens,  the  townsfolk  had  no 
resource  save  to  make  up  out  of  their  own  pockets  the 
losses  of  the  tax  collector  during  these  troubles.2  We 
have  the  record  of  yet  another  quarrel  in  1480,  when 
the  archbishop  seized  the  tithe  of  the  aftermath  in 
the  King's  Mead,  updn  which  the  mayor  immediately 
collected  his  posse,  marched  to  the  meadow  about  a 
mile  distant,  and  there  ordered  sixteen  pennyworth 
of  wine  to  be  served  out  all  round  for  the  refreshment 
of  his  troop.3 

II.  With  the  Abbot  of  S.  Augustine's  the  city 
had  disputes  concerning  mill  and  market.  For  the 
"  Abbot's  Mill "  was  supposed  to  injure  the  City 
Mill,  which  lay  a  little  higher  up  the  stream,  and 
the  grievance  was  so  serious  that  in  1415  iron- 
topped  stakes  were  driven  into  the  river  bed  by  a 
board  of  inspectors  to  mark  the  highest  level  for  the 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  139,  145. 

2  Ibid.  173. 

3  The  cost  was   entered  on  the  chamberlain's  accounts,    but 
there  is  nothing  more  to  tell  how  the  matter  ended.     Ibid.  144. 

B  B    2 


372          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

water  at  the  Abbot's  Mill,  so  that  the  fall  might  be 
deep  enough  for  water  coming  from  the  wheel  of  the 
City  Mill.1  As  late  as  1522  there  was  a  consultation 
between  the  town  body  and  "  Milord  of  S.  Austin's  " 
about  the  fish-market,  which  ended  in  a  friendly 
manner  with  the  present  of  a  conger-eel  and  a  bottle 
of  Malmsey  to  the  abbot. 

The  chief  quarrel  however  was  as  to  the  exact 
limits  of  the  abbot's  authority  as  defined  by  an 
agreement  drawn  up  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and 
carefully  copied  out  anew  by  the  city  clerk  in  the 
fifteenth  century  ;  and  the  nice  point  under  discus- 
sion during  many  generations  was  whether  the  abbots, 
under  pretext  of  infang-theoff,  should  persist  in  arrest- 
ing evildoers  in  Longport,  which  was  the  King's 
highway  and  under  the  jurisdiction  of  his  assignees, 
the  corporation  of  Canterbury,  but  which  ran  for  its 
whole  length  through  the  abbey  lands.2  It  was  only 
after  1475  that  the  dispute  seems  to  have  come  to  an 
end,  when  the  abbot's  gallows  at  Chaldensham  were, 
by  the  consent  of  the  community  and  of  the  convent, 
broken  to  pieces.  A  Baron  of  the  Exchequer  and 
the  Recorder  of  London  chosen  to  arbitrate  between 
the  burghers  and  the  monks,  were  welcomed  at  Canter- 
bury with  a  fee  for  their  pains,  lodged  at  the  Austin 
Friars,  entertained  sumptuously  at  the  town's  expense 
with  lavish  supplies  of  choice  food  and  drink,3  and 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  169-70.  2  Ibid.  170. 

3  The  details  as  to  the  costs  of  many  of  these  feasts  are  pre- 
served— the  claret  and  wines  white  and  red,  and  the  beer  and  ale, 
which  recommended  a  dinner  made  up  for  example  of  a  swan, 
five  capons,  two  geese,  a  side  of  brawn,  two  lambs,  four  rabbits, 


xi  THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH  373 

served  with  three  meals  a  day,  "  fractio  jejunii,  jan- 
taculum,  et  ccena,"  till  finally,  on  a  certain  afternoon 
the  monks  and  the  corporation  met  to  drink  together 
in  honour  of  the  final  peace,  and  the  ambassadors  set 
out  on  their  journey  homewards,  treated  to  refresh- 
ments at  every  stage  from  the  parting  cup  at  Canter- 
bury to  the  farewell  drink  at  Newgate.  In  1478 
they  delivered  their  arbitration  at  Westminster,  and 
there  was  a  fresh  series  of  "  potationes  "  to  celebrate 
the  settlement.1 

III.  The  Abbot  of  S.  Augustine's  was  indeed  a  far 
less  formidable  neighbour  than  the  Prior  of  Christ 
Church,  between  whom  and  the  city  there  lay  centu- 
ries of  angry  controversy.  With  him  also  there  was 
of  course  the  usual  quarrel  about  the  administration 
of  justice.  The  Prior  had  his  own  gallows,  where 
men  were  hung  for  sheep-stealing  as  well  as  for 
murder,  and  when  the  see  of  Canterbury  was  vacant 
convicted  prisoners  who  "  pleaded  their  clergy " 
were  handed  over  to  him  as  their  ordinary — an 
arrangement  which  evidently  must  have  been  a 
source  of  much  bitter  feeling  on  the  part  of  the 
townspeople;  in  1313,  for  example,  out  of  nine  men 
who  were  convicted  by  a  jury  in  the  Assize  court 
of  stealing  and  murder  and  who  all  pleaded  their 
clergy,  seven  purged  themselves  before  the  ecclesi- 

beef,  marrow  bones,  a  jowl  of  salmon,  gurnards,  roach,  bread, 
spices,  salt,  vinegar,  butter,  milk,  eggs,  lard,  and  suet.  Sacks  of 
coal  were  always  bought  for  the  cooking  of  these  great  dinners, 
either  charcoal  sold  in  sacks,  or  "sea-cole"  sold  by  the  tub. 
Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  146,  163. 
'  Ibid.  143-4. 


374          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUEY      CHAP. 

astical  judge  and  were  set  free.1  Moreover  the 
cathedral  was  turned  into  a  sanctuary,  where  crimi- 
nals fled  from  the  just  judgment  of  their  fellow 
citizens.  In  1425  Bernard  the  goldsmith,  a  stranger 
from  over  sea,  escaped  from  the  city  prison  and  fled 
to  the  cathedral  church,  followed  by  the  bailiffs 
and  a  wild  mob  of  townsmen.  As  he  crouched 
within  the  rails  of  the  new  monument  put  up  to 
Archbishop  Chicheley,  the  mob  thrust  their  arms 
between  the  bars,  seized  him  and  beat  him  with 
sticks  hidden  in  their  sleeves,  and  at  last  tore  him 
out  of  the  enclosure,  carried  him  into  the  nave,  and 
would  have  dragged  him  back  to  gaol,  save  for  the 
sudden  interference  of  the  commissary,  who  with  his 
followers  drove  them  back  and  rescued  the  prisoner 
from  their  hands.2 

So  also  the  question  of  taxes  caused  much  wrang- 
ling. Christ  Church,  which  owned  within  the  franchise 
£200  of  rent  and  five  acres  of  land,3  claimed  to  be 
free  from  any  contribution  for  maintaining  the  walls 
of  the  city  4  after  their  circuit  had  been  completed  by 
Archbishop  Sudbury  and  left  to  the  people's  care ; 
and  this  dispute  was  not  settled  till  1492,  when  the 
convent,  having  got  possession  of  a  part  of  the  wall, 
undertook  to  keep  that  section  of  it  in  repair.5 
With  regard  to  the  costs  of  levying  soldiers  for 
the  royal  service 6  the  citizens  decided  in  1327 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  77.  2  Ibid.  112. 

3  Lit.  Cant.  i.  216.  4  Ibid.  iii.  379,  380. 

5  Ibid.  318-320;  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  433-4. 
G  These    charges    were   heavy  in   the   southern  towns.       For 
example,  Canterbury  and  Sandwich  had  to  provide  Warwick  and 


xi         THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH         375 

to  charge  a  part  of  this  tax  on  lands  held  by  the 
convent.  The  tax  seems  to  have  been  required 
only  from  property  in  the  city,  and  the  archbishop 
was  inclined  to  give  way  after  discussion  with  his 
counsel,  "  however  much  those  of  our  Church  may 
\vish  to  do  otherwise,"  but  the  prior  resolutely  held 
out  and  got  a  letter  of  special  protection  from  the 
King  for  Church  property.1  At  this  the  city  was 
stirred  to  the  utmost  fury.  The  people  held  a 
meeting  in  Blackfriars'  churchyard,  and  passed  a 
resolution  that  if  the  convent  still  refused  they  would 
break  their  windows  in  Burgate,  disable  their  mills, 
drive  their  tenants  out  of  their  houses  ;  that  they 
would  allow  no  one  to  give,  sell,  or  lend  meat  or 
drink  to  monks,  and  would  seize  carts  and  horses 
carrying  food  from  their  manors  and  sell  them  in  the 
market ;  that  they  would  arrest  any  monk  coming 
out  of  the  monastery  into  the  city  and  take  his 
clothes  and  property  ;  that  the  monastery  should  be 
cut  off  from  the  world  by  a  deep  trench  dug  in  front 
of  its  gate,  and  that  no  pilgrim  should  be  allowed  to 
enter  the  cathedral  until  he  had  taken  an  oath  not  to 
make  the  smallest  offering.  Finally  every  man  at  the 
meeting  swore  that  he  would  have  from  S.  Thomas's 
shrine  a  gold  ring  for  a  finger  of  each  hand.2  The 
threat  of  interference  with  their  pilgrims  was  a 
serious  matter  to  the  convent,  since  the  whole  charge 

his  garrison  with  victuals  in  Calais  in  1457.    Oman's  Warwick, 
64. 

1  Lit.   Cant.  i.  213-222.     This  quarrel  was  100  years  old  at 
this  time.     Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  433. 

2  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  98. 


376          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

of  providing  for  the  comfort  and  safety  of  the 
pilgrims  lay  with  the  mayor.  Not  only  was  it  his 
office  to  see  that  sufficient  food  was  laid  up  in  the 
city  for  the  pilgrims  and  to  have  all  the  special 
directions  which  he  judged  necessary  for  their  victuals 
and  lodgings  set  forth  on  a  post  which  stood  before 
the  court  hall,  but  he  was  further  responsible  for 
keeping  order  among  them,  and  there  were  occasions 
when  travellers  would  set  out  on  their  journey  with 
just  apprehension  unless,  as  happened  at  Lydd, 
official  messengers  from  the  town  were  sent  before 
to  Canterbury  to  arrange  that  its  pilgrims  might 
come  and  go  in  safety  without  danger  of  arrest,  and 
won  favour  of  the  mayor's  wife  by  the  gift  of  a  quart 
of  malmsey.1  The  corporation  had  in  fact  power  to 
make  a  visit  to  the  shrine  so  difficult  and  unpleasant 
as  seriously  to  affect  the  flow  of  offering  to  the  treasury 
of  the  saint,  and  this  at  a  time  when  the  anxiety  of 
the  convent  about  profits  was  heightened  by  the 
pressing  demands  of  the  Papal  Court  for  a  share  in 
the  spoils  of  its  great  Jubilee  festivals.2  Money  quarrels 
in  fact  never  failed  on  either  side,  and  at  the  very 
end  of  the  fifteenth  century  it  would  seem  that 
Cardinal  Morton  saw  in  the  old  feuds  a  chance  for 
making  Canterbury  pay  its  full  tribute  to  the  royal 
treasury  ;  when  in  1494  he  issued  demands  for  aid  in 
money  or  in  men  for  the  Scotch  war  he  seems  to  have 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  521. 

-  The  last  Jubilee,  when  the  oblations  amounted  to  £600,  was 
celebrated  in  1470.  In  1520  the  Pope  demanded  a  half  of  the 
gross  receipts,  but  the  archbishop  and  chapter  not  being  disposed 
to  grant  this  no  Jubilee  was  held.  Literse  Cantuar.  iii.  xxxv., 
xxxvi. 


xi  THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH  377 

sent  several  blank  copies  of  the  summons  to  his  friend 
Prior  Selling  to  be  filled  up  by  him  and  issued  to 
corporations  and  citizens  whom  he  thought  rich 
enough  to  pay.  Probably  in  his  directions  to  the 
tax-gatherer  Prior  Selling  did  not  forget  old  enemies 
of  the  convent.1 

The  quarrel  as  to  the  town  market  also  lasted  on 
throughout  the  fifteenth  century.  There  the  city 
magistrates  had  indeed  undisputed  control,  but  it  was 
not  always  easy  to  enforce  their  control  on  the  clever 
people  of  the  convent.  Sometimes  the  monks  at- 
tempted to  escape  from  the  regulations  and  tolls  of 
the  burgesses  by  sending  to  buy  their  fish  at  the 
seaside  ;  and  the  townsmen  protected  themselves  by 
seizing  any  fish  so  bought  on  its  way  to  the  priory.2 
Other  questions  arose  as  to  houses  belonging  to 
Christ  Church  which  opened  inwards  on  the  pre- 
cincts but  had  windows  looking  outwards  on  the 
market-place  in  Burgate  just  outside  the  priory 
gate,  from  which  houses  shutters  and  windows 
could  be  let  down  for  the  inhabitants  to  display  their 
wares  on  market-day,  whereat  the  town  was  doubly 
aggrieved  both  by  losing  the  rent  of  stalls  and  by 
seeing  the  increasing  rent  of  the  houses  pass  away 
into  the  convent  treasury.  At  last  in  1493  convent 
and  city  sought  to  make  a  final  settlement  of  the 
question.  The  boundaries  of  the  monastery  were 
defined,  including  many  houses  of  laymen,  and  within 
these  limits  the  town  renounced  all  jurisdiction  except 
over  houses  and  shops  which  had  doors  or  windows 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix.  145-146. 

2  Ibid.  v.  433. 


378          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

opening  on  the  street ;  while  the  convent  was  allowed 
to  distrain  on  any  houses  that  belonged  to  it  in  the 
city.  But  in  1500  the  quarrel  broke  out  with  intenser 
bitterness,  and  the  mayor  violently  shifted  the  market 
from  the  prior's  gate  to  the  open  space  near  the  city 
church,  so  that  no  house  held  by  the  convent  should 
have  the  advantage  of  opening  out  upon  it.  Then 
ecclesiastical  tenants  refused  to  sell  in  the  new  market, 
and  city  stall-holders  treated  the  convent  servants 
with  little  courtesy.  The  citizens  fell  on  the  caterer 
of  Christ  Church  as  he  was  carrying  a  halibut  he  had 
bought  from  the  market  to  the  priory  gate,  and  took 
it  from  him,  "  contrary  to  all  right  and  good  con- 
science ; "  and  when  the  prior  sent  to  the  seaside  for 
fish,  it  was  seized  at  the  entrance  of  the  town  by  the 
citizens,  "  disappointing  in  the  same  the  brethren  of 
the  place  of  their  dinners."1  The  prior  brought  his 
grievances  before  the  London  courts,  upon  which  the 
whole  town  took  up  the  question  with  ardour,  and  the 
burgesses  collected  a  voluntary  subscription  to  defend 
their  cause.  The  mayor  was  charged  with  the 
conduct  of  the  suit  in  London.  Ten  or  twelve 
citizens  were  perpetually  riding  backwards  and 
forwards  and  hanging  about  the  courts,  and  the 
usual  expenses  entered  in  the  town  records  for  drink, 
supper,  horse-meat,  hire  of  horses  to  Rochester  and 
hire  of  barges  and  cloaks  for  the  travellers  from  thence 
to  London,  down  to  "  threepence  paid  at  Sittingbourne 
in  washing  of  my  shirts."  Master  Poynings,  being  at 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Coin.  v.  433-4. 

2  Ibid.     ix.     146-7.          The      chamberlain's     accounts      give 
the    costs    of    one  visit    to     London  of  mayor    and    aldei-men 


xi  THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH  379 

last  commissioned  by  the  King  to  take  evidence  on 
the  spot,  was  entertained  at  a  splendid  banquet,  and 
finally  an  exemplification  of  the  market  was  sent  up 
to  the  King's  Council  in  London.  In  1501  a  new 
messenger  from  the  King  "  came  to  the  city  and 

on  business  of  the  town.  Three  counsel  were  paid  10s.  ; 
one  of  them  "  in  the  cloister  at  Paul's  when  he  corrected 
the  copy,"  got  3s.  4e£.  and  his  clerk  I2d.  The  mayor  gathered 
together  all  the  witnesses  in  a  house  beside  Paul's  to  rehearse 
their  evidence  "against  they  came  into  the  Star  Chamber," 
and  paid  for  bread  and  drink  and  house  room  for  them  16cZ. 
At  Westminster  Hall  the  three  counsel  got  3*.  4d.  each,  and 
for  the  three  days  following  the  same  fees  were  daily  paid. 
In  the  Star  Chamber  Master  Roydon  paid  for  examination  of 
sixteen  persons  at  2s.  4c£.  a  man,  37s.  4e?. ;  two  days  after  fees 
were  again  paid  to  two  counsel,  and  a  breakfast  given  to  Sir 
Matthew  Browne.  Master  Fisher  was  paid  for  the  fees  of  the 
Hilary  term  19s.  Warrants  of  attorney  cost  4s.,  and  copies  of 
the  panels  2s.  The  counsel  had  to  be  looked  up  in  their  country 
houses,  and  messengers  were  always  crossing  Tilbury  Ferry  to 
look  for  "  Master  Raimond,"  and  give  him  a  retaining  fee  "  to  be 
our  counsel,"  or  going  to  Finchley  to  seek  "  Master  Frowick," 
perhaps  to  find  that  "  he  was  then  ridden  to  Walsingham,  so  the 
said  Thomas  came  to  London  homeward  again."  The  Master 
Recorder  of  London  was  met  coming  to  the  Temple  and  besought 
"to  be  good  master  to  the  city,"  and  retained  at  a  cost  of  6s.  8d. 
with  a  breakfast  to  his  servants  in  Fleet  Street.  Then  a  mes- 
senger waited  at  the  Guild  Hall  for  the  recorder,  and  again 
watched  for  him  "  the  same  day  at  afternoon  at  Milord  Dawbeny's 
place,  there  waiting  till  the  said  Master  Recorder  had  supped, 
and  when  he  came  out  we  besought  him  to  speed  us,  for  the  time 
of  the  forfeit  passed  not  three  days ;  which  answered  that  he  was 
sore  occupied  and  might  not  entende  it  so  shortly,  where  we  took 
him  6s.  8d.,  and  then  he  bade  us  wait  on  him  on  the  morrow  in 
the  Temple.  The  next  day  when  Mr.  Recorder  had  contrived 
the  bill  and  corrected  it,  for  his  reward  6s.  8d.  Paid  for  a  pike 
given  to  Master  Mordaunt  3s.  4o?."  The  mayor  then  sent  to 
Canterbury  to  direct  that  some  gift  should  be  sent  up  which 


380          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

tarried  not  because  of  death,1  but  spake  with  Mr. 
Mayor  at  S.  Andrew's  Church,  the  which  showed  him 
the  market  and  so  he  departed  to  Dover,"  followed  by 
a  messenger  of  the  mayor  hurrying  after  him  with 
presents  of  fish,  game,  poultry,  and  wine.  Then  new 
ambassadors  were  sent  from  the  city  to  the  King  at 
Richmond,  and  the  paying  of  fees,  and  costs  for  eating 
and  drinking  went  on  merrily.  But  the  citizens  won 
the  day  in  the  end,  for  the  Canterbury  market  is  still 
held  by  S.  Andrew's  Church  and  was  never-  brought 
back  to  the  priory  gate. 

Even  the  control  of  the  river  brought  its  troubles, 
for  whenever  a  question  arose  as  to  embanking  and 
straightening  the  bed  of  the  stream,  the  prior  and  the 
mayor  met  in  the  meadows  about  Chatham  with  their 
followers  and  carried  on  consultations  refreshed  by  the 
usual  supply  of  meat  and  drink.  Business  however 
was  done  at  these  parties,  and  the  river  turned  from 
its  meandering  course  from  one  side  of  the  valley  to 
the  other  into  the  straight  channel  in  which  it  now 
flows.2  The  question  of  the  mills  was  less  easy  to 

might  be  used  in  "making  friends";  and  several  members  of 
the  Common  Council  travelled  up  with  two  trouts  (one  trout  cost 
about  10s.)  and  ten  capons.  The  witnesses  examined  in  the  Star 
Chamber  each  got  6s.  8d.  and  their  travelling  expenses ;  after 
their  examination  they  adjourned  to  the  buttery  for  an  entertain- 
ment, and  paid  "  in  reward  to  the  officers  of  the  King's  buttery 
for  their  good  cheer  I2d.  and  to  the  cook  of  the  King's  kitchen 
8d."  Besides  all  this  there  was  a  great  deal  of  feasting  and 
drinking  in  eight  of  the  London  inns,  in  Southwark,  Cheap, 
Fleet  Street,  Paul's  Chain,  and  Holborii.  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  ix. 
147. 

1  The  Plague.     Hist,  MSS.  Com.  ix.  147. 

2  Ibid.  150. 


xi          THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHUECH         381 

settle,  with  the  dependent  problems  as  to  damming 
the  water  and  dredging  the  shallows.  A  settlement 
made  in  1431  to  prevent  the  injury  of  the  city  mill 
failed  to  end  disputes,  and  in  1499  the  prior  dug  a 
trench  which  drew  away  the  water  from  it,  upon 
which  the  citizens  destroyed  the  trench  and  pro- 
ceeded to  make  a  dam  for  the  conservation  of  the 
water  running  to  their  mill.  The  prior  in  his  turn  cut 
the  dam  ;  whereupon  the  mayor  called  out  his  posse  to 
fight  the  matter  out  in  the  meadows  by  the  river, 
apparently  routed  the  enemy's  forces,  seizing  their 
arms,  and  the  next  day  in  his  wrath  removed  the 
market  to  its  new  place,  as  we  have  seen.1 

So  ended  the  fifteenth  century  in  Canterbury  amid 
a  storm  of  invective  and  free  fighting.  The  mayor 
protested  that  the  prior,  in  addition  to  all  his  other 
crimes,  had  taken  away  the  mace  from  the  city 
serjeant,  and  had  allowed  the  city  ditch  to  be  be- 
fouled. The  prior  retorted  by  accusing  the  mayor 
of  riotous  conduct,  and  breaking  of  boundaries  and 
building  of  bridges  and  diverting  of  water-courses 
to  his  damage,  and  not  only  this,  but  of  having  for 
malice  and  grudge  to  the  prior  and  convent  broken 
the  old  custom  of  the  citizens'  gathering  at  Christ- 
mas at  the  tomb  of  Sudbury  to  pray  for  his  soul 
for  the  great  acts  he  had  done  for  the  city,  so  that 
they  now  withdrew  their  prayers  from  thence  to 
hold  their  service  under  the  prison  house  called 
Westgate.  Indeed  they  even  refused  to  join  the 
noblemen  who  brought  the  King's  offering  to  S. 
Thomas  at  the  Christmastide  feast. 
1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  433-4. 


382          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

As  usual,  however,  all  this  mighty  turmoil  ended  in 
nothing.  The  mayor  was  indicted  by  the  convent  for 
riot,  and  the  verdict  of  the  jury  went  against  him, 
but  no  particular  result  seems  to  have  followed ;  and 
though  the  persevering  prior  then  had  the  case 
brought  before  the  Star  Chamber  in  1501,  it  was 
passed  over  for  want  of  leisure.1 

Practically  the  same  story  was  repeated  at  Canter- 
bury as  at  Exeter  and  in  every  other  city  where 
there  was  a  similar  conflict.2  Money  and  skill  and 
labour  and  passion  were  expended  without  measure, 
and  finally  the  courts  adjudged  that  all  must  remain 
as  it  had  been  when  the  municipality  scarcely  existed 
three  hundred  years  before,  an  order  which  states- 
men possibly  thought  the  safest  course  in  the  presence 
of  opposing  forces,  neither  of  whom  was  strong 
enough  to  win,  and  neither  of  whom  could  dare  to 
lose.  But  this  was  not  the  end  of  the  matter. 
Through  these  three  hundred  years  the  towns  had 
gathered  strength,  perfected  their  machinery  of 
government,  and  realized  their  own  might.  Wealthy, 
highly  organized,  very  centres  of  rationalism  in 
politics  and  common  sense  in  business,  their  con- 
troversy with  the  Church,  singularly  free  as  it  was 
from  theological  pre-occupation,  was  inevitably  in 
all  questions  of  temporal  government  more  keen  and 
resolute  in  the  fifteenth  century  than  ever  before. 
It  was  vain  to  renew  attempts  in  one  town  after 
another  to  appease  irreconcilable  quarrels  by  arbitra- 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  434. 

2  The  dispute  in  Norwich  was  brought  before  the  king's  court 
in  1512.     Documents,  Stanley  v.  Mayor,  &c.,  pr.  1884,  50-64. 


xi          THE  TOWNS  AND  THE  CHURCH         383 

tions  and  compromises  which  left  the  real  problem 
untouched,  and  the  century  before  the  Reformation 
was  everywhere  a  time  of  restless  dissatisfaction,  and 
of  spasmodic  revolts  against  the  alien  ecclesiastical 
settlements  which  throve  on  the  town's  wealth,  and 
could  never  be  absorbed  into  the  town's  life.  For 
a  little  space  matters  hung  in  the  balance,  and  then 
came  the  crash  of  the  Reformation.  In  the  bitterness 
of  feeling  that  grew  out  of  the  long  struggle  of  the 
burghers,  we  have  a  measure  of  that  temper  of  virile 
independence  which  created  the  boroughs  of  the 
Middle  Ages ;  and  as  we  stand  now  under  the  walls  of 
Canterbury  Cathedral  and  see  its  glory  shattered  and 
its  carved  work  broken  in  pieces,  we  may  well  won 
der  whether  in  that  great  ruin  there  was  no  other 
motive  at  work  than  the  fanaticism  of  a  religious 
awakening. 


CHAPTER    XII 

CONFEDERATION 

THE  fact  that  the  English  burghers  took  so  im- 
patiently the  one  hindrance  that  lay  in  their  path  to 
independence  and  supremacy  is  itself  a  proof  of  the 
habit  of  prosperity  and  success  which  they  were 
accustomed  to  accept  as  part  of  their  natural  heritage 
in  the  pleasant  place  where  their  lot  had  fallen.  How 
little  they  had  at  any  time  to  reckon  with  opposition 
is  obvious  from  the  striking  fact  that  they  never  found 
themselves  compelled  to  form  any  kind  of  union  or 
alliance  for  common  purposes.  Here  the  story  of 
English  boroughs  is  in  vivid  contrast  to  that  of  the  con- 
tinental towns.  The  powerful  confederations  formed 
in  European  countries  by  towns  battling  against 
tremendous  odds  to  protect  their  commerce,  liberty, 
and  law,  had  no  parallel  among  the  comparatively 
peaceful  and  regular  conditions  of  English  life,  where 
self-government  wTas  so  easily  attained,  and  where 
trade  was  so  generally  secure,  that  the  necessity 
never  arose  for  the  creation  of  any  such  associations. 


CH.  xii  CONFEDEKATION  385 

Towns  on  the  royal  demesne  stood  in  no  need  of  any 
combined  effort  to  defend  their  freedom ;  and  the 
towns  on  ecclesiastical  lands  or  feudal  estates  that 
had  grievances  to  complain  of  were  few,  scattered, 
and  subject  to  so  many  different  lords  that  com- 
bination among  them  would  have  been  wholly 
impossible.  Organized  common  action  was  therefore 
practically  unknown  among  the  English  boroughs ; 
for  the  loose  tie  of  affiliation  which  bound  together 
communities  of  which  one  had  adopted  the  charter 
and  copied  the  customs  of  another  was  a  bond  so 
slight  as  to  be  scarcely  recognized,1  and  implied  no 
mutual  obligations  whatever.  In  moments  of  ex- 
cited strife  or  rapid  constitutional  growth  a  borough 
might  undoubtedly  become  fired  by  the  example  of  a 
near  neighbour,  or  catch  the  contagion  which  spread 
from  some  community  more  advanced  in  its  experi- 
ments and  daring  in  its  pretensions ;  but  these 
movements  of  sympathy,  of  voluntary  affiliation,  of 
emulation,  never  resulted  in  any  kind  of  federation  or 
alliance.  For  the  developement  of  its  liberties  each 
borough  was  ultimately  left  to  depend  only  on  its 
own  resources ;  while  such  societies  as  were  con- 
stituted in  later  days  in  England  for  trading  pur- 
poses took  the  form  of  federations  of  men  not  of 
towns.2 

There  was  but  one  exception  to  this  general  rule, 

1  Gross,  i.  241-281. 

2  See  the  saying  of  Bacon  quoted  by  Anderson  in  his  Origin 
of  Commerce,  ii.  232.     "  I  confess  I  did  ever  think  that  trading 
in  companies  is   most  agreeable  to  the  English  nature,   which 
wanteth  that  same  general  vein  of  a  republic  which  runneth  in 
the  Dutch  and  serves  them  instead  of  a  company ;  and  therefore 
I  dare  not  advise  to  adventure  this  great  trade  of  the  kingdom, 

VOT.    I  C    C 


336          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

and  in  the  Confederation  of  the  Cinque  Ports  we  have 
the  single  illustration  in  England  of  an  association  of 
towns  created  and  maintained  for  common  interests. 
From  Seaford  in  Sussex  to  Brightlingsea  in  Essex 
ports  and  villages  were  bound  together  into  one 
society.  To  the  original  group  of  the  Five  Ports — 
Hastings,  Sandwich,  Dover,  Romney,  and  Hythe, 
whose  alliance  probably  reaches  back  to  the  time  when 
the  English  learned  war  and  commerce  from  Danish 
masters — the  two  Ancient  Towns,  Winchelsea  and 
Rye,  had  been  added  immediately  after  the  Norman 
Conquest ;  and  what  with  the  desire  of  these  seven 
to  divide  their  burdens  of  taxation  and  war  charges 
with  the  neighbouring  villages,  and  the  readiness  of 
the  villages  on  their  side  to  seek  admission  to  the 
Port  privileges,1  an  association  had  in  course  of  time 
been  evolved  consisting  of  seven  head  Ports  with 
eight  corporate  and  twenty-four  non-corporate  mem- 
bers,2 all  gathered  under  the  rule  of  the  Lord  Warden. 
To  the  last  they  bore  traces  of  foreign  influences  in 
the  name  of  Jurats  by  which  they  called  their  "  port- 
men,"  and  of  Barons  which  they  gave  to  their 
'•freemen."  But  amid  the  curious  vicissitudes  of 

which  hath  been  so  long  under  government,  in  a  free  or  loose 
trade." 

1  Boys'  Sandwich,  770.     The  Custumals  of  Dover,  Sandwich, 
Romney,  Rye,  and   Winchelsea,  are   given   in   Lyon's   Dover,  ii. 
267-387. 

2  The  Ports  with  corporate  members  were :  — Hastings :  (Sea- 
ford,  Pevensey).     Sandwich  :  (Fordwich,  Deal).     Dover  :  (Folke- 
stone, Faversham).  Romney :  (Lydd).  Rye  :  (Tenterden).  Hastings 
had  six  non-corporate  members ;    Sandwich  six ;    Dover   seven ; 
Romney  four ;  and  Hythe  one  ;  each  of  which  was  governed  by 
a  Deputy  sent  by  the  head  Port. 


XTI  CONFEDERATION  387 

their  history,  and  the  odd  incidents  of  their  owner- 
ship in  times  when  it  seemed  natural  and  simple 
to  grant  away  the  very  frontier  defences  of 
England  to  Norman  counts  and  Breton  dukes  and 
abbots  of  Fecamp  and  monks  of  Canterbury,1  and  in 
later  days  after  English  kings  had  realised  the 
advantages  of  themselves  owning  the  main  gates  by 
which  their  country  opened  on  the  European  world,2 
these  communities  remained  firmly  united  under  their 
federal  government.3  The  King's  writ  did  not  run 
in  the  Ports  unless  it  bore  the  seal  of  the  Lord 
Warden.  Exempt  by  charter  from  serving  on 
juries,  assizes,  or  recognizances  outside  their  own 

1  Dover  had  always  remained  in  the  King's  hands,  but  Hythe 
and  Romney  belonged  to  the  Archbishop,  while  Sandwich  had 
been  given  to   Christ  Church,  Canterbury,  and  Hastings,  Win- 
chelsea,  and  Rye  had  been  handed  over  to  the  Abbey  of  Fecamp. 
A  few  details  about  the  relations  of  Fecamp  to  its  possessions  at 
Hastings,  Winchelsea,  and  Rye,  may  be  found  in  Leroux  de 
Lincy's  Abbaye  de  Fecamp,  pp.  289,  294,  300,   327,   331 ;  and 
a  notice  of  the  tax  called  aletot  which  was  paid  by  the  inhabit- 
ants of  Rye  to  Fecamp,  p.  299.     The  two  parish  churches  of 
Hastings,  being  part  of  the  alien  priory  of  Fecamp,  were  never 
appropriate  or   belonging  either  to  the  College  of   S.  Mary  or 
to  the  Priory.     They  were  afterwards  granted  away  by  Henry 
the  Eighth  (Horsfield's  Hastings,  i.  448).     The  Counts  of  Eu 
held  the  Castle  with  the  whole  of  the  rape  of   Hastings  and 
the  manor  till  their  estates  were  forfeited  by  rebellion  about 
1245  and  given  by  Henry  the  Third  to  his  son  Edward.     Moss' 
Hastings,  3-4,  63. 

2  There  was  a  considerable  change  in  the  century  that  followed 
the  complete  political  separation  of  England  from  the  Continent. 
Henry  the  Third  got  back  Rye  and  Winchelsea,  and  at  least  the 
Castle  of  Hastings  if  not  more  ;  and  Edward  the  First  Sandwich  ; 
while  Hythe  and  Romney  remained  with  the  Archbishop. 

3  For  rights  possessed  in  the  time  of  Henry  the  Second  see 
Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  454. 

C   C  2 


388          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUKY     CHAP. 

territory,1  the  freemen  could  be  impleaded  only  in 
their  own  courts.2  No  prisoner  from  the  Ports  could 
be  summoned  by  the  Judges  to  Westminster,  and 
in  the  case  of  an  express  order  from  the  King  "  some 
demur  should  be  made  to  the  first  mandate  till  it 
be  known  with  certainty  it  is  his  pleasure,"  3  while 
on  the  other  hand  any  stranger  who  committed  a 
crime  within  their  liberties  might  be  claimed  by  the 
mayor  and  jurats  from  any  lordship  in  the  realm, 
even  from  the  King  himself.4  They  had  even,  after 
a  fight  which  lasted  for  generations,  successfully 
resisted  all  attempts  to  bring  their  local  jurisdiction 
within  the  general  judicial  system  of  the  kingdom, 
and  the  Justices  Itinerant  were  shut  out  from  crossing 
their  boundaries  or  sitting  at  their  Court  of  Shepway.5 
Ancient  privileges  were  jealously  guarded.  "New 
Acts  of  Parliament,"  they  said,  "  ought  not  to  alter  the 
free  customs."6  No  deodand  was  given  to  the  Crown 

1  Confirmed   by  Edward  the  First,  1293.     Rot.  Parl,  i.   101. 
There  were  no  coroners  in  the  Cinque  Ports  except  the  mayors  of 
the  various  towns.     Lyon's  Dover,  ii.  269,  347,  371,  303. 

2  A  writ  of  error  lay  to  the  Shepway  Court  only  from  any  of 
the  Ports  ;  but   from  the    Shepway  finally  there    might   be   an 
appeal  to  the  King's   Bench.     (Boys'   Sandwich,  697,    771.)     A 
mayor  of    Sandwich   accused    of   assaulting  the  sheriff's  bailiff 
refused  to  answer  except  at  the  Court  of  Shepway.     (Ibid.  661.) 

3  Lyon's  Dover,  ii.  304.    See  Rot.  Parl.  i.  332.    For  the  charter 
of  Edward  the  Third  see  Boys'  Sandwich,  568-9. 

4  Boys,  470-1. 

5  Montagu     Burrows'     Cinque     Ports,    73-4.       The     Cinque 
Ports  joined  Simon  de  Montfort  against  the  King.     Possibly  this 
revolt  was  due  to  the  limits  fixed  to  their  territory  by  Henry  in 
1259-60,  for  a  little  later  the  Barons'  party  extended  those  limits. 
(Ibid.  107.)     It  was  in  this  war  too  that  they  finally  secured  free- 
dom from  summons  before  the  King's  Justices. 

(>  Boys'    Sandwich.    445.       "  Within  the  Cinque   Ports  there 


xii  CONFEDERATION  389 

"  because  it  never  was  the  custom  here."1  If  an 
ecclesiastical  officer  came  from  Canterbury  to  make 
an  inventory  of  the  goods  of  a  Sandwich  man  who 
had  died  without  a  will,  he  was  not  allowed  to  act 
because  it  was  contrary  to  the  ancient  customs 
and  liberties  of  the  town.2  Their  corporate  dignity 
was  officially  recognized  on  great  occasions  of  State, 
such  as  the  coronation  of  a  King  or  the  consecra- 
tion of  an  Archbishop,  when  the  envoys  of  the 
Cinque  Ports  were  treated  with  special  honour  and 
sat  at  the  right  hand  table  in  the  hall ;  and  each 
of  the  Ports  in  turn  sent  representatives  to  carry 
the  canopy  over  the  newly-crowned  King,  and  after 
the  ceremony  to  bear  it  back  with  its  silk  hangings, 
its  spears,  and  its  silver  bells,  as  the  town's  spoils.3 
As  to  the  idea  or  principle  which  held  this 
society  of  towns  together  and  the  purpose  which  it 
was  meant  to  serve,  the  definition  given  by  a 
minister  of  the  Crown  would  probably  have  been 
very  different  from  that  given  by  a  baron  of  the 
Ports.  To  a  statesman  the  confederation  of  the  Cinque 
Ports  was  organized  in  the  interests  of  the  whole 
country,  and  maintained  as  the  bulwark  of  national 
safety ;  and  the  policy  of  West  Saxon  rulers,  of 
Danish  conquerors,  of  Norman  kings,  of  Angevin 
statesmen,  had  all  alike  aimed  at  the  increasing 
of  its  public  utility.  Holding  their  posts  in  the 
first  line  of  defence  against  invasion,  the  Cinque 
Port  towns  were  bound  to  keep  a  sufficient  number 

is  no  trial  by  jury  as   in  other  places."      Ibid.   452.     For  the 
system  of  compurgation  see  p.  465. 

1  Ibid.  468.  -  Boys,  681. 

3  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iv.  1,  425  ;  v.  496 ;  ix.  151. 


390          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

of  men  within  their  walls  for  defence  against  the 
enemy,  and  watch  that  inhabitants  were  not  driven 
away  by  the  imposition  of  undue  local  taxes ;  they 
had  to  bear  heavy  costs  for  ordnance,  ammunition, 
fortifications ;  to  set  a  nightly  watch  in  every 
borough  and  at  every  dangerous  creek  or  harbour ; 
to  have  armed  forces  ready  to  meet  the  first  brunt 
of  attack,  while  their  citizens  might  expect  in  time 
of  war  to  see  their  houses  sacked  and  burned 
again  and  again.  They  had  to  provide  every  year 
fifty-seven  ships  and  1,197  men  with  provisions  for 
the  defence  of  the  kingdom,1  and  if  these  were  not 
enough  in  number  or  in  size  greater  ones  and  more 
were  required  of  them.  If  they  hesitated  to  comply 
with  such  demands,  or  if  they  were  shown  not  to 
have  held  firm  against  the  invader,  they  were 
roughly  reminded  of  the  bargain  on  the  terms  of 
which  alone  all  their  privileges  were  held,  and 
saw  their  charters  and  franchises  seized  into  the 
King's  hand.2 

This  view  of  the  organization  of  the  Cinque  Ports 
for  the  public  service  was  visibly  represented  in  the 
rule  of  the  King's  officer,  the  Lord  Warden  of  the 
Ports  and  Constable  of  Dover  Castle.  His  authority 
the  men  of  the  Cinque  Ports  were  never  for  a  moment 

1  Boys'  Sandwich,  682. 

2  In  1395  Romney  contributed  nearly  £10  to  the  maintenance 
of  the  liberties  of  the  Cinque  Ports,  and  in  1407,  1408,  and  1409, 
it  had  to   spend    over  <£5  each  year  in  payment  for  such   pur- 
poses.    The  renewal   of    these   charters    on    one    occasion    cost 
Hythe  £17  as  its  share.     (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  535,  537.)     These 
payments  were  over  and  above  the  sums  which  had  to  be  given 
for  the  charters  of  each  separate  Port,  and  which  were  also  a 
heavy  cost. 


xii  CONFEDERATION  391 

allowed  to  forget ;  and  the  Lieutenant  of  Dover  or  his 
messengers,  continually  riding  round  the  Ports  with 
message  or  proclamation  or  to  "  make  inquisition,"1 
were  everywhere  helped  on  their  way  by  dinners, 
breakfasts,  pipes  of  wine,  or  a  play  at  the  public 
expense.  From  Dover  came  proclamations  "  warning 
us  of  the  Danes "  ;  ordering  "  that  no  man  should 
quarrel  with  other  for  none  old  sores  "  ;  commanding 
"  to  arrest  the  men  who  came  from  beyond  sea  with- 
out leave  and  without  billets "  ;  or  to  seize  ships 
for  crossing  over  to  Flanders ;  calling  out  vessels 
"  to  watch  the  sea  "  ;  or  to  serve  the  King  in  siege  or 
battle  during  the  French  war ;  summoning  men  "  to 
keep  the  Castle  of  Dover  "  ;  or  decreeing  the  amount 
of  benevolences  to  be  paid  to  the  King.2  The 
subjection  of  the  whole  confederation  to  his  rule  was 
publicly  recognized  every  year  in  the  Court  of 
Shepway,  when  at  his  summons  there  came  from 
every  port  the  mayor  and  a  little  group  of  jurats 
carrying  with  them  the  required  gifts  and  dues,  wine 
and  swans  and  fish  and  spices  to  furnish  breakfast 
for  officials  and  suitors  at  the  court ;  or  costly  offerings 
to  soften  the  hearts  of  wardens  and  judges,  and 
induce  them  on  their  first  entering  into  office  to  look 
favourably  on  their  subjects.  Before  them  as  they 
sat  on  either  side  of  the  Warden  on  the  open  plain 
near  Lympne  3  proclamation  was  made  as  to  the  taxes 
to  be  raised  by  the  confederation,  the  special  military 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  545. 

2  Ibid.  525,  494,  517-18,  520. 

3  The   usual    number    was    four  or  five.       Lyon's   Dover,  i. 
251.     Roinney  sent  six.     Ibid.  ii.  342.     For  the  capons,  geese, 
etc.,  with  which  they  came  laden  see  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  534. 


392          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY     CHAP. 

services  required  of  the  freemen,  or  the  new  decrees 
issued  by  the  Government  ;  and  special  offences 
against  the  Crown  were  judged.  A  whole  community 
might  be  charged  with  a  breach  of  the  King's  peace,1 
or  an  aggrieved  corporation  made  application  that 
officers  of  the  Ports  should  be  sent  to  help  in  the 
arrest  and  punishment  of  some  stranger  who  had  com- 
mitted a  crime  in  their  town  ;  and  prisoners  from  the 
various  towns  accused  of  coining  false  money,  treason, 
or  counterfeiting  the  King's  seal,2  were  tried,  and  if 
found  guilty  were  forthwith  tied  on  a  sledge,  drawn 
round  the  circuit  of  Shepway,  and  hanged  on  the 
spot.3 

Nor  did  the  authority  of  the  Warden  end  at 
Shepway.  As  Constable  of  the  Castle  he  had  his 
court-martial  in  Dover.4  As  Admiral  he  could  order 
a  "  quest  of  the  Admiralty  "  to  be  held  on  the 
sea-shore,  or  perhaps  at  some  one  of  the  Ports  which 
had  offended  against  the  laws  of  the  confederation 
—a  calamity  which  the  town  at  once  sought  to  avert 
by  negotiations  and  bribes  "  that  he  should  not  hold 
the  court."  As  Chancellor  he  issued  precepts  and 
summonses  as  to  the  services  to  be  performed  by 
the  Ports  in  return  for  their  privileges,  and  exercised 
in  his  court  of  chancery  the  complicated  jurisdiction 
that  gradually  arose  out  of  these  records.  There 


were    moments  when   the    Kinff   was    stirred    to    a 

o 

recollection  of  his  sovereignty  —  moments  when  the 
towns  had  pushed  independence  too  far,  or  when  the 
treasure  in  the  royal  coffers  had  fallen  low  ;  then 

1  In  1281  the  mayor  and  townsmen  of  Sandwich  were  accused 
of  assaulting  the  sheriff's  bailiffs.     Boys'  Sandwich,  661. 

2  Ibid.  462.          3  Lyon's  Dover,  i.  254.          4  Ibid.  1.,  260-1. 


xii  CONFEDERATION  393 

from  Westminster  a  writ  of  enquiry  would  come  as 
to  the  privileges  of  the  Ports,  delegates  were 
summoned  from  the  various  towns  to  appear  before 
the  Warden,  and  might  find  themselves  kept  many 
days  and  nights  at  Dover1  while  "inquisition  was 
made  for  the  King."  Sometimes  they  were  ordered 
to  assemble  on  the  sea-shore.  Sometimes  the  Warden 
came  down  the  steep  path  of  the  castle  hill  to  the 
tiny  church  of  S.  James,  set  in  the  first  little  reach 
of  level  ground  below  the  walls  of  the  fortification, 
and  there  the  jurats  came  up  to  meet  him  from  their 
lodgings  in  the  town  below,  and  after  days  of  discus- 
sion probably  returned  home  with  heavy  news  of 
fines  to  be  levied  for  buying  a  new  charter,  or  for 
getting  the  confirmation  of  some  doubtful  privilege. 

In  the  authority  of  the  Warden  we  see  the  view 
held  at  Westminster  about  the  uses  of  the  Cinque 
Ports  and  the  main  object  of  their  existence.  To  the 
people  on  the  other  hand  the  association  had  another 
and  wholly  different  character.  So  completely  was 
all  the  business  of  the  Warden's  court  at  Shepway 
looked  on  by  the  portsmen  as  the  King's  affair,  and 
so  slight  was  their  sense  of  participation  in  it,  that 
they  presently  gave  up  attending  it  altogether,  leaving 
the  Warden  at  last  to  preside  in  solitary  state.  In 
course  of  time  even  the  ancient  site  was  abandoned, 
and  instead  of  the  annual  assembly  at  Shepway  the 
president  only  summoned  an  occasional  court  of 
appeal  to  be  held  at  Dover,  2  and  there,  surrounded 

1  In  1410  jurats  from  Romney  spent  three  days  and  three 
nights  at  Dover  at  such  an  inquisition.     Hist.   MSS.   Com.   v. 
538. 

2  From  about  1471  the  court  only  met  at  Shepway  for  the  in- 


394          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

by  a  group  of  lawyers  to  advise  him,  sat  on  the  chalk 
cliff  fronting  the  castle  to  hear  certain  cases  imme- 
diately touching  the  King's  interest.1  Meanwhile  the 
barons  of  the  Ports  had  their  own  tradition  of 
independence  and  self-government ;  and  the  popular 
belief  as  to  the  object  and  meaning  of  the  con- 
federation was  embodied  in  another  court  which  sat 
on  the  Broad  Hill,  near  Eomney — a  court  where  the 
Lord  Warden  had  no  seat.2  It  was  there  that  the 
whole  interest  of  the  people  centred,  as  turning  their 
backs  on  the  King's  courts  and  leaving  him  to  conduct 
through  the  Lord  Warden  the  matters  which  were  his 
peculiar  business,  they  occupied  themselves  with  the 
management  of  their  own  special  affairs.  For  to  the 
fisherman  of  the  coast  the  confederation  of  the  villages 
was  in  its  origin  and  working  simply  a  great  trading 
company  of  the  Ports  for  the  protection  of  their  staple 
business,  the  herring  fishery,  and  for  the  preservation 
of  their  ancient  customs  of  harbourage  and  sale  on 
the  strand  at  the  mouth  of  the  Yare — a  matter  which 
became  of  absorbing  importance  when  their  monopoly 
was  threatened  by  the  fishermen  of  Yarmouth,  so  that 
from  the  time  of  John  onwards  they  could  only  pre- 
serve their  interests  by  ceaseless  vigilance  and  by 
costly  appeals  to  King  and  Parliament,  and  Council.3 

stallation  of  the  Lord  Warden  and  the  presentation  of  the 
courtesy  of  £100  offered  him  on  the  occasion  by  his  subjects. 
Montagu  Burrows'  Cinque  Ports,  186.  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v. 
539. 

1  It  only  took  cognizance  of  five  points,  high  treason,  falsifying 
money,  failure  of  ship  service,  false  judgment,  and  treasure  box. 

2  Montagu  Burrows'    Cinque    Ports,    66-7,     73-5.      See    the 
agreement   of    the    Ports    drawn  up  in  1358.     Boys'  Sandwich, 
560-3.  :!  See  Rot.  Parl.  i.  32,  332 


xn  CONFEDERATION  395 

In  the  eyes  of  the  barons  therefore  the  great  assembly 
of  the  confederation  was  that  which  yearly  met  to 
discuss  the  business  of  the  Yarmouth  fair.  And 
this  was  in  the  strictest  sense  a  court  of  the  people 
themselves,  summoned  only  by  common  consent,1 
presided  over  by  the  chief  magistrate  of  each  Port 
in  turn,  and  in  which  every  town  was  represented 
by  its  mayor  or  bailiff,  three  elected  jurats,  and  three 
commons.  The  sheltered  harbour  of  Romney  formed 
a  sort  of  natural  centre  of  the  Ports,  and  the 
delegates  met  for  business  on  the  Broad  Hill  or 
Bromhille  of  Dymchurch  close  by,  whence  they 
possibly  took  the  name  of  Brodhull,  a  name  which  in 
later  days  when  the  first  site  was  forsaken  and 
forgotten  and  the  delegates  met  in  Romney  itself, 
became  changed  into  "  Brothyrhill  "  or  Brotherhood.2 
On  the  first  day  of  meeting  the  business,  as  be- 
fitted an  association  for  trading  purposes  which  dated 
back  to  the  time  when  the  herring  fishery  was  the 
staple  trade  of  the  Ports,  was  invariably  the  Yarmouth 
fair,  and  the  court  heard  the  report  of  the  bailififs  of 
the  last  fair  who  stood  bare-headed  before  them,  and 
elected  their  successors  who  were  to  govern  the 
coming  fair.3  But  other  interests  had  grown  up 

1  Every  year  a  letter  was  sent  to  each  Port  asking  "  whether 
a  Brotherhood  or  Guestling  is  necessary  to  be  arreared  this  year," 
and  when  the  common  consent  was  given  the  summonses  were 
issued.     Burrows'  Cinque  Ports,  177. 

2  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iv.  i.  427. 

3  These  four  bailiffs  aided  by  a  provost  chosen  by  the  Yarmouth 
commonalty,    took    over    the   keys   of    the    prison,    issued   all 
ordinances  and  held  pleas.     This  went  on  till  1663.     (See  Hist. 
MSS.    Com.    v.    553,   533,   535,    539-43.)       Boys'   Sandwich, 
576-7.     But  the  question  of  the  Yarmouth  fair  gradually  declined 


396          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY     CHAP. 

round  the  assembly  hill.  The  seafaring  population, 
masters  and  mariners  of  trading  barges,  saw  in  the 
union  of  Ports  the  power  which  regulated  the  re- 
lations of  seamen  on  either  side  of  the  Channel. 
To  the  taxpayers  it  was  a  voluntary  association  for 
the  equitable  adjustment  of  their  burdens.  And  all 
the  inhabitants  alike  recognized  its  importance  for 
maintaining  against  lords  of  other  franchises  the 
privileges  which  had  been  granted  them  in  return 
for  their  services.1 

On  the  great  day  when  the  Yarmouth  fair  was 
under  discussion  the  Court  of  Brotherhood  sat  alone  ; 
but  on  the  following  days  when  other  work  was  to  be 
done — the  distribution  between  the  various  towns  of 
the  taxation  2  ordered  at  Shepway,  the  discussion  of 
commercial  relations,3  the  care  of  the  common  cor- 

in  importance,  and  in  the  fifteenth  century  became  relatively  of 
so  little  consequence  that  the  Brodhull  decreed  in  1515  that 
the  yearly  report  of  their  bailiffs  sent  to  Yarmouth  might  be 
dispensed  with.  (Lyon's  Dover  i.  xii.) 

1  Lyon's  Dover  i.  iv.  v. 

2  It  was  already  well  established  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  possibly  much  earlier,  that  orders  of  the  Court  of  Shepway 
as  to  the  taxes  required  for  the  King  or  for  the  general  purposes 
of  the  Ports  became  the  basis  of  agreements  made  between  the 
Ports  at  the  Brodhull  concerning  the  share  of  taxes  to  be  paid  by 
each  Port.     See  Burrows'  Cinque  Ports,  180-1. 

3  In  1412  a  curious  agreement  between  the  mariners  of  France 
and  England  was  signed  by  Romney  and  Lydd,  and  probably  by 
all  the  ports  from  Southampton  to  Thanet.     It  provided  that  if 
any  master  or  mariner  were   captured  the  only  ransom  to  be 
asked  on  either  side   should  be  six  nobles  for  the  master  and 
three  for  the  mariner  with  20  pence  a   week  board  for  each ;  a 
fishing  boat  with  nets  and  tackles  was  to  be  set  free  for  40  pence  ; 
any  man  taken  on  either  coast  should  be  charged  no  ransom,  but 
a  gentleman  or  merchant  who  was  taken  might  be  charged  any 


xii  CONFEDERATION  397 

porate  privileges  of  the  confederation l — the  Court  of 
Brotherhood  was  joined  by  the  Court  of  Guestling, 
probably  a  descendant  of  the  ancient  Hundred  Court 
once  held  in  the  old  town  of  Gestlinges  near  the 
border-line  of  Kent  and  Sussex.2  To  this  court  each 
town  might  send  the  mayor,  two  jurats,  and  two 
commoners ;  so  that  if  all  the  delegates  came  the 
number  of  the  united  assemblies  would  be  seventy- 
seven  ;  as  a  matter  of  fact  however  in  the  time  of 
Henry  the  Sixth  the  business  was  done  by  about 
thirty  members.3  All  the  important  affairs  of  the 

ransom  that  his  captor  chose.  In  case  of  any  dispute,  arbitrators 
were  appointed  ;  if  these  were  disobeyed  100s.  was  to  be  paid  on 
one  side  to  S.  Nicholas  at  Romney,  on  the  other  side  to  the 
Church  of  Hope  All  Saints.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  537-538.) 
The  arrangement  as  to  the  place  of  payment  of  the  fine  was 
doubtless  different  in  each  town  of  the  league.  The  common 
serjeant  of  Hythe  in  the  same  year  rode  to  Dover  to  get 
a  copy  of  the  composition  for  his  own  town.  In  a  disputed 
case  when  the  plaintiff  and  defendant  seem  to  have  been  of 
Romney,  questions  touching  the  "  Law  of  Oleron,"  i.e.,  the  Law 
Maritime,  were  decided  "  by  the  judgment  of  the  masters  of  ships 
and  boats  of  the  vills  of  Hastings,  Winchelsea,  Sandwich,  and 
Dover,"  that  is,  a  majority  of  the  seven  towns.  (Hist.  MSS.  Com. 
vi.  543.) 

1  At  any  time  the  court  might  be  summoned  to  redress  a 
wrong,  and  not  only  the  jurats  and  commonalty  of  a  town  but 
any   aggrieved   person    whatever   in   the    whole   confederation 
might  claim  that  a  Brodhull   should  be   summoned  if  he  was 
wronged  on  any  point  touching  the  charters,  usages,  or  franchises 
of  the  Ports.     Burrows'  Cinque  Ports,  181. 

2  Ibid.  177-8.     The   Guestling  sometimes  sat  separately  for 
special  business,  generally  perhaps  at  Winchelsea,  for  the  affairs 
of  the  three  Sussex  Ports.     For  an  instance  in  1477  see  Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  v.  489. 

3  Moss's    Hastings,    21.     The   importance   of   the   Guestling 
Court  gradually  declined  and  in   1601   the  Brotherhood  Court 


398          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY     CHAP. 

Cinque  Ports  practically  lay  in  their  hands,  and  their 
decisions,  registered  as  Acts  of  the  Brodhull  by  the 
Common  Clerk  of  the  Cinque  Ports,1  became  the  law 
of  the  whole  confederation. 

Constantly  reminded  of  their  ancient  covenant  and 
confederation  by  imminent  perils,  arduous  exertions 
and  recurring  taxes,  trained  to  habits  of  vigilance 
and  mutual  support,  the  Cinque  Ports  kept  a  jealous 
watch  against  the  slightest  infraction  of  the  privi- 
leges of  their  united  body.  But  there  was  one 
matter  with  which  the  confederation  had  nothing 
whatever  to  do.  Subject  to  a  variety  of  jurisdictions, 
some  of  them  depending  on  the  King,  some  on  the 
Archbishop,  some  011  a  bigger  neighbouring  town, 
the  special  liberties  of  each  borough  had  been  deve- 
loped under  very  different  conditions ;  and  the  whole 
association  took  no  heed  of  the  defence  of  the 
liberties  of  any  single  Port  against  its  lord,  or  the 
enlargement  of  the  privileges  of  any  one  member 
of  their  society  as  apart  from  the  whole.2  The 
corporate  existence  of  the  united  Cinque  Ports  was 
a  thing  altogether  apart  from  the  corporate  existence 
of  each  town  within  it ;  and  indeed  combination  for 
any  purpose  of  securing  local  liberties  would  have 
been  out  of  the  question  in  a  confederacy  where  a 

(then  near  its  own  extinction)  passed  a  decree  that  the  yearly 
Guestling  might  be  abolished.  Lyon's  Dover  i.  xii. 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  539. 

2  Burrows  (Cinque  Ports,    238)  suggests  that  Lydd,  like  the 
supposed  case  of  Faversham,  might  have  owed  its  incorporation 
under  a  mayor  and  jurats  to  the  Court  of  Shepway.     He  does 
not  give  any  reasons  for  this  supposition.     Lydd  was  under  the 
Archbishop ;   Faversham  under  the  abbot  until  the  suppression 
of  the  abbey.     Ibid.  234. 


xii  CONFEDERATION  399 

certain  outward  uniformity  was  but  the  screen  of 
endless  diversity,  and  towns  bound  together  by 
special  duties  and  privileges  were  widely  separated 
from  one  another  in  all  the  conditions  of  govern- 
ment.1 This  is  very  evident  if  we  compare  the 
situation  of  Sandwich  and  Eomney — much  more  so  if 
we  consider  the  position  of  any  of  the  subordinate 
members  of  the  Ports. 

I.  For  many  centuries  Sandwich  belonged  to  the 
monks  of  Christ  Church,  Canterbury,  and  so  long- 
as  it  was  a  humble  little  port  powerful  kings  like 
Eadgar,  Cnut,  Henry  the  First,  and  Henry  the 
Second  had  been  content  to  have  it  so,  and  with 
indifferent  acquiescence  confirmed  the  monastic  rights 
over  the  town.  But  when  in  the  course  of  time 
Sandwich  became  the  port  through  which  almost 
the  whole  of  the  continental  trade  with  England 
passed,  when  its  commerce  and  revenue  increased 
till  it  stood  far  before  Dover  in  importance,2  when 
it  was  the  chief  harbour  from  which  monarchs  or 
their  ambassadors  set  sail  for  France,  or  from  which 
armies  were  sent  forth  in  time  of  war,  the  King 

1  Dover  and  Sandwich  were  the  first  of  the  Ports  to  have  a 
mayor,  the  mayors   of  Sandwich  being  continuous  from   1226. 
Then  came  Rye  and  Winchelsea  about   1297.     The  other  three, 
Hastings,  Hythe,  and  Romney,  were  ruled  by  bailiffs  till  the 
time  of  Elizabeth. 

2  For  goods  imported  into  Sandwich  see  Boys,  435-9,  658-9. 
Iron  was  brought  from  Spain  and  Cologne  and  wine  from  Genoa ; 
all  kinds  of  skins,  and  furs,  with  silk,  spices,  and  frankincense  from 
the  Levant.     For  the   taxes  on   merchandise,  cellars,  and  ware- 
houses see  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  458.     Under  Edward  the  Third 
it  fitted  out  for  the  King's  service  22  ships  with  504  mariners. 
Boys,  783-4. 


400          TOWN  LIFE  IX  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUKY      CHAP. 

began  to  look  more  seriously  on  the  powers  exercised 
over  it  by  the  convent.  An  inquest  ordered  by  the 
Crown  in  1227  reported  in  favour  of  the  rights  of 
Christ  Church  over  Sandwich,  but  by  judicious  bar- 
gaining matters  were  finally  arranged  to  the  royal 
satisfaction.  At  the  price  of  a  grant  of  lands  in 
Kent  Edward  the  First  bought  the  town,  and  though 
the  monks  were  still  allowed  certain  lands  and  houses 
free  from  municipal  charges,  and  continued  to  receive 
large  sums  from  the  wharf  which  was  known  as 
Monkenkey  with  its  crane  for  loading  and  unloading 
ships,1  and  from  the  warehouses  enclosing  it,  they 
had  to  abandon  their  powers  of  taxing  at  discretion 
all  passengers  and  goods  which  crossed  the  bounds 
of  their  territory.2 

The  Sandwich  people  had  elected  their  own  mayor 
since  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century ;  while 
the  royal  interests  were  now  looked  after  by  a  bailiff 
appointed  by  the  King.3  The  townsmen  however 
kept  a  jealous  watch  over  their  own  prerogatives. 
When  in  1321  Christ  Church  obtained  a  royal  writ 
to  protect  their  property  from  the  town  taxes  the 
mayor  and  community  refused  to  accept  it  because 
it  had  been  issued  to  the  King's  bailiff,  and  the 

1  Liters    Cant.    i.    Ixix. — Ixxii.       Hist.    MSS.    Com.    ix.    74. 
Boys'  Sandwich,  663.     Edward  the  Third  completed  the  process 
in  1364.     Ibid.  669. 

2  In  1422  an  agreement  was  made  that  the  corporation  should 
go  in  and  out  on  the  quay  freely,  and  use  the  monks'  gate,  "  to 
provide  for  the  guard  and  the  defence  of  the  town."  The  ground 
along  the  quay  was  to  be  deemed  a  highway.     Ibid.  671. 

3  Under  a  patent  of  white  wax  because  Sandwich  would  not 
obey  an  Exchequer  patent  under   green   wax.     Boys,   441,   404, 
435-457. 


xii  CONFEDERATION  401 

convent  had  to  get  a  new  writ.1  The  bailiffs  powers 
were  carefully  defined  and  kept  in  strict  subordination 
to  those  of  the  mayor.  He  collected  the  King's  dues 
on  goods  brought  into  the  town ;  2  and  it  was  he  who 
summoned  the  Hundred  Court  every  three  weeks  to 
meet  in  S.  Clement's  church  for  view  of  frankpledge, 
for  pleas  of  land,  questions  of  trespass,  covenant, 
debt,  battery,  bloodshed,  and  so  on ; 3  but  he  could 
not  hold  the  court  without  the  mayor's  leave,  nor 
issue  the  summonses  without  the  mayor's  orders. 4  The 
mayor  for  his  part,  if  he  was  elected  in  S.  Clement's, 
the  church  where  the  courts  of  the  King  were  held, 
had  his  seat  of  government  in  S.  Peter's,  a  church 
that  stood  in  the  very  centre  of  the  town  near  the 
Market-place  and  Common  Hall,  and  in  whose  tower 
the  "  Brande  goose  bell "  hung  which  summoned 
jurats  and  council  men  to  the  Common  Assembly, 
and  rang  out  the  hours  for  the  market.  He  gathered 
the  Town  Council  for  business  to  S.  Peter's,  and  in 
S.  Peter's  he  sat  every  Thursday,  and  if  business 
required  it  on  other  days,  to  judge  the  people.5 
Though  the  bailiff  sat  by  his  side  and  took  part  in 
the  business  of  the  court,  yet  for  offences  against 

1  Literse  Cant.,  i.  46-48.  In  1324  the  convent  however 
repeated  the  offence.  Ibid.  118-120.  2  Boys'  Sandwich,  435. 

3  Pleas  of  the  Crown  were  held  at  Sandown  in  a  place  called 
the  Mastez  either  011  the  Monday  of  the  Hundred  Court  or 
any  other  Monday.  Ibid.  443.  4  Ibid.  457. 

"'  Ibid.  311,  501.  The  mayor  is  the  judge  and  gives  such 
judgment  as  he  thinks  proper,  whereas  the  bailiff  has  nothing 
further  to  do  with  the  business  than  to  receive  the  amercements. 
Ibid.  459. 

VOL.    I  D    D 


402          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

the  corporation  the  mayor  and  jurats  might  punish 
the  freemen  "  without  consulting  the  bailiff  or  any 
one  else."1  To  them  belonged  the  entire  regulation 
of  trade  and  the  management  of  weights  and  measures, 
for  "  the  bailiff  has  nothing  to  do  with  this  busi- 
ness." In  no  case  was  he  allowed  to  interfere  with 
the  town  market ;  "  that  business  belongs  wholly 
to  the  mayor  and  jurats,"  the  town  customs  de- 
clared.2 

II.  Sandwich  in  fact  after  it  had  passed  to  the  Crown 
enjoyed  the  full  freedom  common  to  the  royal  boroughs. 
Bound  only  by  allegiance  to  the  general  law  of  the 
Cinque  Ports  it  long  maintained,  as  we  shall  see 
later,  a  real  independence  of  local  life  and  a  vigorous 
democratic  temper.  But  in  Romney,  in  the  very 
port  where  the  general  assembly  of  the  Cinque  Ports 
held  its  deliberations,  the  conditions  were  wholly 
different.  For  a  moment  Romney  like  other  to\vns 
enjoyed  its  share  of  profits  in  the  growing  trade  of 
the  country.3  The  vintners  engaged  in  the  wine  trade 
rose  from  ten  in  1340  to  forty-eight  who  headed  the 
list  of  taxpayers  in  1394  ;  a  new  ward  was  called 

1  Boys'  Sandwich,  527.     See  also  450. 

"2  Ibid.  510,  536-7. 

3  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  533-4,535,537,539,541-2.  In  1340 
Romney  was  divided  into  thirteen  wards,  and  941  persons  above 
fifteen  were  assessed  to  the  subsidy  granted  to  the  King  that 
year.  The  whole  sum  assessed  was  ,£48  9*.  6d.  Forty-five 
persons  were  assessed  in  Old  Romney  at  43*.  Qd.  The  receipts 
from  taxes,  rents,  etc.,  in  1381  seem  to  have  been  nearly  £180. 
(Boys,  799-801.)  Romney  seems  to  have  come  to  the  height  of 
its  prosperity  about  1386.  One  barge  was  built  1386  ;  one  in 
1396  ;  one  in  1400;  one  hired  in  1420.  (Ibid.  535-40.) 


xii  CONFEDERATION  403 

after  its  cloth-dealer  Hollyngbroke ; l  and  merchants 
from  Prussia,  Holland,  Spain,  and  Flanders,  citizens 
of  Bristol  and  of  London,  men  from  York  and  from 
Dorset  gathered  within  its  walls.  But  a  doom  was 
already  on  the  town.  As  early  as  1381  it  had 
begun  its  vain  struggle  against  winds  and  tides 
which  silted  up  its  port,  destroyed  its  river 
channel,  and  forced  the  Bother  into  a  new  bed. 
Dutch  and  Flemish  engineers  had  been  called  over 
to  make  scientific  sluices  and  barriers,  and  the 
whole  population  had  been  summoned  out  to  dig  a 
water-course,  but  in  spite  of  incessant  efforts  the  men 
of  Eomney  saw  their  trade  driven  into  other  ports."2 
The  forty-eight  vintners  of  1394  had  sunk  to  forty- 
four  in  1415,  to  five  in  1431,  and  to  one  in  1449. 3 
The  burghers  were  being  steadily  ruined,  and  the 
story  of  their  decay  remains  registered  in  the  long 
lists  of  citizens  who  pledged  their  goods  for  debt, 
giving  in  promise  of  payment  saddles,  cups,  table- 
cloths, helmets,  cloths,  which  were  delivered  by  the 
creditor  into  the  hands  of  the  bailiff  for  keeping  in 
the  Common  Hall  "  according  to  custom,"  and  when 
the  day  of  payment  had  passed  were  appraised  by 
bailiff  and  jurats,  often  at  half  or  a  quarter  of  the 
value  at  which  they  had  been  first  declared,  and 
handed  over  to  the  creditor.  4 

Through  good  and  evil  fortune  moreover  Romney 

1  This  was  an  old  family  in  the  town,  for  in  1314-15  complaint 
was  made  that  Hugh  Holyligebrok  and  the  community  were 
sheltering  and  defending  robbers  and  felons  so  that  the  country 
could  not  get  justice  on  them.  Rot.  Parl.  i.  324. 

-  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  535-42. 

s  Ibid.  535-42.  4  Ibid.  vi.  543-4. 

D  D   2 


404          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTUKY      CHAP. 

had  to  maintain  a  constant  struggle  for  freedom. 
The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  was  lord  of  the  manor, 
and  appointed,  subject  to  the  ratification  of  the  Lord 
Warden,  the  bailiff  of  the  town,1  choosing  if  it  seemed 
good  to  him  one  of  his  own  servants  or  squires,  and 
by  a  curious  exception  from  the  general  law  having 
liberty  to  select  a  publican.2  The  bailiff  fixed  the 
days  for  holding  the  market.  He  gathered  in  the 
Archbishop's  dues,  made  sure  that  his  share  of  any 
wax,  or  wine,  or  goods  cast  on  the  shore  from  wrecks 
was  handed  over,  and  that  the  jurats  collected  in 
proper  time  the  capons  and  swans  and  cygnets 
which  had  to  be  sent  to  him,  or  that  a  porpoise 
taken  by  the  fishermen  should  be  duly  despatched  to 
the  lord.  The  common  horn  sounded  twice  at  the 
market-place  and  at  the  cross  to  summon  the  people 
to  his  court. 

The  question  of  government  and  of  the  bailiffs 
position  was  however  always  in  debate.  The  "best 
men  of  the  town  "  rode  to  Archbishop  Courtenay  "  to 
know  his  will  and  what  he  proposed  to  do  against 
their  liberties";  and  for  the  following  century  the 
Romney  men  were  always  on  the  watch,  and  heavily 
taxed  in  gifts  and  bribes  "  to  protect  the  liberty  of 
the  town  that  the  said  lord  might  not  usurp  it."3 
The  bailiffs  power  indeed  was  strictly  limited.  So 
far  as  the  administration  of  justice  went  he  was 

*  Hist,  MSS.  Com.  iv.  1,  425,  429;  Ibid.  vi.  541. 

2  Bailiff  and  jurats  were  allowed  to  hold  taverns  of  wine  and 
ale  "  notwithstanding  their  office,  so  that  they  do  not  sell  more 
dear  on  account  of  their  office."  Lyon's  Dover,  ii.  337. 

8  Hist,  MSS.  Com.  v.  534,  535,  539,  543,  544. 


xii  CONFEDERATION  405 

absolutely  controlled  by  the  twelve  jurats  who  were 
yearly  elected  "  for  to  keep  and  govern  the  port  and 
town ;  " l  and  "  in  case  the  bailiff  do  other  execution 
than  the  sworn  men  have  judged  against  the  usage 
of  the  town  "  they  might  fine  him  £10  to  the  com- 
mons.2 But  this  was  not  enough.  In  1395  the 
jurats  made  suit  to  the  Lord  Archbishop  to  "put 
his  bailiwick  into  the  hands  of  the  community  of 
Romney  at  ferrn,"  3  and  for  the  century  wThich  followed 
they  were  always  seeking  for  some  means  of  gaining 
complete  control  of  the  government.  For  lack  of 
better  security  a  simple  expedient  was  discovered. 
The  townspeople  allowed  a  custom  to  grow  up  that 
the  Archbishop  should  not  be  expected  to  appoint 
a  new  officer  every  year,  but  that  whoever  was  sent 
to  the  town  should  be  understood  to  hold  his  post 
permanently.  When  in  1521  the  prelate  complained 
that  the  jurats  would  not  let  his  bailiff  enter 
Romney  4  they  answered  that  when  there  was  no 
bailiff  in  the  town  the  Archbishop  might  send  a  new 
one,  but  that  the  accustomed  bailiff  who  had  been 
admitted  seven  or  eight  years  ago  was  still  living 

1  The  twelve  jurats  were  summoned  by  the  common  horn  to 
assemble  for  business  in  the  parish  church  until  they  hired  a  room 
in  1410  to  hold  their  meetings  and  to  store  the  goods  of  the  com- 
munity;  in  1421  they  built  or  repaired  a  common  house  with 
thatched   roof  and   glass   windows,  an  exchequer  table  covered 
with  green  cloth,  and  a  bell  to  ring  for  the  election  of  jurats.     A 
book  of   customs   was  probably  drawn  up  under  Richard   the 
Second,  a  small  seal  made  in  1389,  and  a  bell  in   1424.     Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  v.  534,  537,  540,  541,  546. 

2  Lyon's  Dover,  ii.  313-14. 

3  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  535.  4  Boys'  Sandwich,  806-8. 


406          TOWX  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

and  was  "  of  good  name  and  fame,"  and  so  the  place 
was  not  void ;  moreover,  they  said,  a  bailiff  must 
make  his  appearance  with  certain  formalities  and 
"  be  of  good  opinion,"  but  this  new  man  had  not 
been  sent  with  the  proper  forms.  The  fixity  of 
tenure :  Avhich  the  townsfolk  thus  raised  to  the 
dignity  of  a  "  customary  "  right  Avas  a  real  guarantee 
that  the  bailiff  should  no  longer  be  a  mere  dependent 
holding  his  post  at  the  pleasure  of  a  distant  master, 
trembling  under  the  apprehension  of  hazarding  his 
employment  by  preferring  the  interests  of  the  com- 
monalty to  those  of  his  lord,  and  only  intent  on  heap- 
ing up  treasure  against  the  day  when  his  credit 
and  employment  should  come  to  an  end.  He  be- 
came more  and  more  identified  with  the  townsfolk 
among  whom  he  lived,  and  on  whose  approval  he 
was  made  dependent  by  their  contention  that  he 
should  hold  office  so  long  as  he  was,  in  their  opinion, 
"  of  good  name  and  fame." 

But  the  burghers  were  still  dissatisfied  with  so 
precarious  a  tenure  of  independence.  There  was  a 
proposal  which  came  to  nothing  to  unite  the 
bailiff  and  jurats  of  the  town  with  the  bailiff 
and  jurats  of  the  marsh;  but  in  1484  the  people 
profited  by  the  troubles  of  Richard's  reign  to  plan 
a,  thoroughgoing  revolution.2  They  set  up  a 
mayor  for  themselves,  and  sent  to  have  a  silver 
mace  made  at  Canterbury  under  the  very 
walls  of  the  Cathedral  precincts.  The  Archbishop 

1  One  bailiff  appointed  in  1415  was  only  ratified  in  1421. 
(Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iv.  i.  429.)  The  contrast  with  the  habit  in 
other  borough?  is  very  striking.  2  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  547. 


xit  CONFEDERATION  407 

called  in  the  help  of  the  Crown  and  the  great  people 
of  the  London  law  courts,  and  after  much  battling 
and  negotiation  the  matter  was  ended  before  the 
year  was  out  by  a  Privy  Seal  being  sent  down  to 
Romney  to  depose  the  mayor.  Before  a  generation 
had  passed  away  however  the  struggle  broke  out 
again  with  new  vigour,  and  in  1521  town  and  prelate 
were  again  quarrelling  over  all  the  old  grievances.1 

The  main  point  of  the  burghers'  argument  was  to 
deny  the  Archbishop's  assertion  that  "  the  town  is 
all  bishopric."  The  jurats  contended  that  "from  all 
time "  they  had  had  the  privileges  of  one  of  the 
capital  Five  Ports,  that  their  grant  of  "  streme  and 
strond"  of  the  sea  and  all  other  rights  came  to 
them  from  the  King  and  not  the  Archbishop ;  and 
that  they  held  the  greater  part  of  their  town  directly 
from  the  Crown,2  on  which  land  the  Archbishop 
had  no  right  to  enter,  and  the  commonalty  had 
rights  of  justice.  So  also  the  Archbishop  had  no 
right  to  the  marsh  and  pasturage  of  four  hundred 
acres  which  had  once  been  creek  and  haven,  but 
had  been  left  dry  land  since  about  1380  by  the 
withdrawal  of  the  sea  a  good  half-mile  from  the  town, 
for  this  "  void  place  "  left  by  the  main  course  of  the 
stream  through  the  town  belonged  to  the  King. 
Arguing  therefore  from  this  fiction  of  being  on  royal 
soil  the  jurats  went  on  to  claim  the  popular  control 
of  justice  which  was  used  in  royal  boroughs,  and 
frowardly  kept  the  courts  without  the  bailiff, 

1  Boys'  Sandwich,  806-8. 

2  For  notices  in  Domesday  on  this  point  see  Burrows'  Cinque 
Ports,  48. 


408          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

boldly  asserting  in  their  own  defence  that  he 
was  at  the  best  but  a  minister  of  the  King's 
courts  in  Romney  and  not  a  judge ;  for  if  the  town 
courts  were  in  fact  courts  of  the  King,  they  were 
under  the  royal  grants  and  charters  which  ordained 
that  mayor  and  jurats,  or  bailiff  and  jurats,  elected 
by  the  people,  were  to  hold  courts,  hear  pleas,  and 
have  fines  and  amercements  and  other  profits  of 
leets  and  law-days ;  and  therefore  since  the  bailiff  of 
Romney  was  not  elected  by  the  commons  he  was 
clearly  excluded  and  had  nothing  to  do  in  the  said 
courts  save  as  minister  and  executioner,  and  any 
record  of  pleas  before  him  was  void.  In  times  past, 
they  declared,  he  had  merely  been  allowed  to  sit 
among  them  by  favour,  and  not  of  duty.  The  fines 
raised  at  leets  and  law-days  they  claimed  for  the 
town's  use,  saying  that  these  had  only  been  given 
to  the  most  Reverend  Father  by  the  favour  of  the 
jurats  to  obtain  his  good  lordship  ;  but  that  he  had 
never  any  right  whatever  to  leet  or  law-day,  fine  or 
amercement.  So  persistent  were  their  protestations 
of  independence  that  it  seems  as  though  ultimately 
the  Archbishop's  heavy  wrath  settled  down  to  rest  on 
the  town.  When  Cranmer  leased  out  the  bailiwick 
of  Hythe  to  the  townspeople,1  he  refused  to  give  to 

1  In  1412  Hythe  sent  two  of  its  citizens  to  London  to  see 
the  Archbishop  and  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  succeeded  in  win- 
ning some  relief  from  the  ancient  customary  services  to  the  King- 
In  the  fifteenth  century  the  Archbishop  sometimes  appointed  the 
bailiff  of  Hythe,  and  sometimes  leased  out  the  appointment  to 
the  town  for  a  term  of  years.  Cranmer  leased  it  out  for  ninety- 
nine  years.  It  only  got  a  mayor  under  Elizabeth.  (Burrows' 


xii  CONFEDERATION  409 

Romney  a  similar  lease — a  gift  which  it  had  begged 
of  Courtenay  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  before. 
Cranmer's  lordship  indeed  came  to  an  end  at  the 
Reformation,  but  even  then  Romney  was  for  a  time 
governed  by  its  senior  jurat,  and  it  was  not  until 
1563  that  it  seemed  to  have  sufficiently  purged  its 
iniquity,  and  that  Elizabeth  finally  allowed  its  people 
to  elect  a  mayor. 

III.  From  the  instances  of  Sandwich  and  Romney 
it  is  evident  that  the  bond  which  existed  between 
the  chief  Ports  only  served  certain  definite  ends,  and 
had  no  influence  whatever  on  the  developement  of 
local  liberties  or  the  intimate  relations  of  a  borough 
to  its  lord.  And  if  this  was  the  case  with  the  leading 
Ports,  still  less  was  it  possible  for  the  subordinate 
members  of  the  confederation  to  look  for  aid  in  their 
private  controversies.  Romney  itself  for  example 
in  the  midst  of  its  struggle  with  the  Archbishop 
was  engaged  in  a  resolute  effort  to  retain  its  own  hold 
over  its  dependent  town  of  Lydd.  There  also  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  was  lord  of  the  manor, 
both  of  the  town  and  of  a  great  part  of  the  grazing 
land  round  it  known  as  Dengemarsh,  in  which  lay  the 
fishing-station  of  Lydd,  Denge  Ness ;  while  the  rest 
of  Dengemarsh  was  divided  between  the  Abbot  of 
Battle,  the  Castle  of  Rochester,  and  Christ  Church, 
Canterbury,  all  alike  ready  to  raise  at  any  time 
questions  of  disputed  rights.  As  far  as  the  Arch- 
bishop was  concerned  the  townsmen  had  commuted 

Cinque  Ports,  215,  217-218;  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  iv.  i.  434,  429. 
Boys'  Sandwich,  811.)  One  man  was  bailiff  for  six  years  from 
1389  ;  and  a  wealthy  publican  for  two  years  from  1421. 


410          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY     CHAP. 

their  services  at  his  court  of  Aldington  for  a  yearly 
payment,  and  became  "  lords  in  mean  "  of  their  own 
borough — possibly  in  the  time  of  Henry  the  Sixth 
when  they  first  began  formally  to  use  the  style  of 
Bailiffs,  Jurats,  and  Commonalty  of  Lydd ;  but  the 
Archbishop's  seal  with  the  mitre  was  still  used  in 
deeds  for  selling  or  letting  land.1 

But  Lydd  was  further  subject  to  Romney  as 
"  member  of  the  Town  and  Port,"  and  in  token  of 
this  submission  their  custumal  was  kept  at  Romney. 
If  they  wanted  to  ascertain  their  rights  they  had  to 
send  a  messenger  to  the  superior  town ;  and  an  entry 
in  the  accounts  of  Lydd  tells  how  the  corporation 
paid  eightpence  to  "the  servant  of  Romney  bringing 
authority  of  having  again  our  franchise."  Romney 
claimed  to  make  awards  on  disputed  questions, 
interfered  about  the  Lydd  markets,  and  ordered  in- 
quisitions as  to  whether  they  had  been  wrongfully 
held.2  Moreover  as  the  inhabitants  of  Lydd  "  were 
contributors  to  Romney  before  all  memory,"  their 
officers  had  year  after  year  to  present  themselves 
before  the  jurats  of  Romney  in  the  Church  of  S. 
Nicholas  carrying  their  accounts  and  such  payments 
as  were  demanded  by  their  rulers.3  Even  after  the 
men  of  Lydd  had  been  given  by  Edward  the  First 
the  same  liberties  and  free  customs  as  the  other 
barons  of  the  Cinque  Ports,  the  sum  of  their  taxes 
was  fixed  by  Romney. 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  531-2.  2  Ibid.  525-6,  532,  536. 

3  In  1403  "  Jurats  of  Lydd  and  Dengemarsh  rnade  account  in 
the  church  of  S.  Nicholas  at  Romney  before  the  Jurats  there  of 
all  their  outlays  and  expenses."  Ibid.  536. 


xii  CONFEDERATION  411 

Among  many  masters  the  corporation  was  kept  in 
a  perpetual  ferment.  The  boundaries  of  its  territory 
were  not  finally  decided  till  1462,  and  the  quarrel 
with  Battle  on  this  point  kept  lawyers  and  town 
clerks  busy  hurrying  backwards  and  forwards  be- 
tween London  and  Lydd,  or  riding  to  Canterbury  to 
get  the  Abbot's  charter,  or  to  Wmchelsea  to  meet 
the  Abbot's  counsel.1  For  a  hundred  years  moreover 
the  town  kept  up  the  long  struggle  to  free  itself  from 
the  supremacy  of  Romney.  Already  in  1384  depu- 
tations from  both  the  towns  met  in  Dover  to  discuss 
the  terms  of  agreement  between  them  with  the 
Warden,  and  from  that  time  lawyers  were  kept 
constantly  at  work,  and  a  counsel  seems  to  have  been 
permanently  employed  in  London,  besides  the  de- 
putations of  bailiff,  common  clerk,  and  jurats  sent 
there  as  well  as  to  Dover,  Sandwich,  or  Canterbury, 
and  the  messengers  despatched  with  "  courtesies  "  for 
the  Lieutenant,  the  Seneschal,  or  the  Clerk  of  Dover 
Castle,  the  Mayor  and  Clerk  of  Dover  town,  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  and  his  steward,  the  Common 
Clerk  of  Winchelsea  and  so  on ;  while  the  salary 
of  the  Town  Clerk,  Thomas  Caxton,  probably  a  brother 
of  the  great  printer,  was  raised  again  and  again,  so 
as  to  secure  the  services  of  the  most  skilful  lawyer 
and  able  administrator  in  all  the  country  round.2 
Even  in  a  trifling  matter  of  taxation  it  was  not  till 
1490  that  the  town  was  able  to  make  a  composition 
for  a  fixed  yearly  payment.3 

IV.  In  the  same  way  Sandwich  had  the  mastery  of 

i  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  524-5.  2  Ibid.  522,  524,  526,  528. 

3  Ibid.  516,  532. 


412          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP: 

the  little  town  of  Fordwich,1  which  lay  fifteen  miles 
higher  up  the  river  and  claimed  dominion  over  a 
tiny  territory  reaching  back  from  the  water's  edge 
on  either  side  as  far  as  a  man  in  a  boat  on  the  river 
could  throw  an  axe  of  seven  pounds  called  "  Taper- 
axe."  The  inhabitants  elected  every  year  a  mayor, 
treasurer,  and  jurats  to  govern  them  and  preserve 
the  liberties  of  the  town.  The  mayor  with  a  black 
knotted  stick  as  badge  of  his  office,  held  his  court 
of  justice.  He  appointed  every  year  four  freemen 
to  act  as  arbitrators  in  case  of  trespass,  and  if  any 
townsman  refused  to  accept  their  decision  or  tried  to 
carry  the  cause  to  another  court,  he  was  fined  the 
enormous  sum  of  a  hundred  shillings,  or  thrown  for 
a  year  into  the  town  prison,  a  filthy  hole  of  nine 
feet  square  which  still  exists.  In  capital  cases  the 
mayor  could  give  sentence  of  death,  and  order  the 
prosecutor  if  he  won  his  suit  to  carry  the  condemned 
criminal  to  the  "  Thefeswell"  and  himself  throw  him 
into  it  with  hands  and  feet  tied,  "  knebent "  as  it 
was  called.2 

Fordwich  however  had  been  granted  by  the  Con- 
fessor to  S.  Augustine's,  Canterbury.3  The  Abbot 
owned  the  soil  of  the  town ;  his  bailiff  lived  within 
its  walls  and  presided  over  the  Hundred  Court  which 
lie  summoned  by  his  officer  "Cachepol";  he  had  his 
own  prison ;  he  was  entitled  to  fines  and  forfeitures 

1  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  606-7. 

'2  It  was  a  common  custom  in  the  Cinque  Ports  for  the  accuser 
to  be  executioner.  Burrows'  Cinque  Ports,  76. 

:'  The  cvistoms  levied  by  S.  Augustine's  on  the  imports  at  Ford- 
wich quay  were  to  be  the  same  as  those  collected  by  Christ 
Church  at  Sandwich.  Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  443. 


xii  CONFEDERATION  413 

from  felons  and  fugitives  ;  and  lie  claimed  certain 
customs  on  all  imports,  and  asserted  a  right  to  con- 
trol the  fisheries  of  the  river  so  as  to  supply  his 
monks  at  the  fasting  seasons. 

The  convent  of  Christ  Church,  Canterbury,  owned 
on  the  other  hand  a  quay  at  the  highest  point  to 
which  ships  could  pass  up  the  river ;  to  this  quay 
wine,  alum,  Caen  stone,  etc.,  were  brought  for  the  use 
of  the  monastery,  and  endless  quarrels  were  developed 
out  of  its  trading  monopolies.1 

As  a  member  of  the  Port  of  Sandwich  the  town 
was  subject  to  certain  regulations  and  taxations 
which  Sandwich  had  a  right  to  impose.  When  the 
chief  Ports  met  to  assess  and  distribute  taxation 
among  themselves,  the  voice  of  the  lesser  members 
of  the  confederation  was  never  heard,  and  the  de- 
pendent towns  had  simply  to  pay  such  proportions 
of  the  sum  due  as  their  masters  ordered,  and  there 
were  naturally  frequent  signs  of  grumbling  and  dis- 
satisfaction.2 The  severe  protectionist  laws  which 
the  Fordwich  people  passed  against  Sandwich  as  to 
the  use  of  the  common  quay  with  the  crane  possibly 
indicates  some  attempt  at  encroachment  which  it  was 
possible  to  resist  as  \vell  as  to  resent. 

Under  the  rude  pressure  of  rival  jurisdictions  on 
every  side,  and  from  which  there  was  no  escape,  the 
corporation  needed  constant  vigilance  in  looking 
after  its  own  interests.  Like  every  other  town  big 
and  little  in  the  fifteenth  century  Fordwich  made 
careful  research  into  the  true  limits  of  its  chartered 

1  Liters  Cant.  iii.  358.     Hist.  MSS.  Com.  viii.  326. 

2  See  case  of  Old  Romney.     Hist,  MSS.  Com.  v.  544. 


414          TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY      CHAP. 

rights,  and  the  clerk  wrote  out  new  copies  of  their 
custumal  and  of  the  old  record  of  their  boundaries. 
In  the  only  point  where  they  had  a  chance  of  success 
its  burghers  fought  with  steady  pugnacity  for  their 
privileges.  Protesting  that  they  held  a  monopoly  of 
the  quay  where  the  ships  were  unloaded,  they  refused 
the  customs  demanded  by  S.  Augustine's,  claimed  the 
whole  control  of  the  river  and  of  the  three  weirs 
which  were  made  every  year  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fishing  season,  and  at  last  forced  a  compromise  which 
left  the  convent  only  the  produce  of  a  single  weir. 

If  the  lesser  members  of  the  Ports  which  were 
themselves  corporate  bodies,  such  as  Lydd  or 
Fordwich,  could  expect  from  their  superiors  no  help 
in  achieving  independence,  the  non-corporate  mem- 
bers were  yet  more  completely  withdrawn  from  the 
chance  of  assistance ;  for  the  seven  great  towns  of 
the  association  would  have  looked  with  little  toler- 
ance on  any  revolt  in  their  dependent  villages.1  Un- 
doubtedly the  inhabitants  of  the  Cinque  Ports  had 
their  full  share  of  the  democratic  temper  that  ruled 
in  the  trading  towns  of  the  eastern  coast  from  the 
Wash  to  the  Channel.  Rebellion  was  in  the  air  ;  and 
the  labourers  and  miners  of  Kent  and  Sussex  had  an 
evil  reputation  in  the  Middle  Ages  as  being  most  prone 
to  civil  dissensions,  "  as  well  for  that  they  can  hardly 
bear  injuries  as  for  that  they  are  desirous  of  novel- 
ties." 2  There  was  never  a  rising  in  which  they  were 

1  For  the  difficulties  which  attended  the  government  of  a 
group  of  dependent  villages  by  the  head  town  see  Lyon's 
Dover,  i.  26-29.  See  also  the  relations  of  Sandwich  and 
Stonor.  Boys'  Sandwich,  547-8.  2  Polydore  Vergil,  84. 


xii  CONFEDERATION  415 

not  the  most  eager  partizans  of  the  revolutionary  side. 
The  men  of  Kent  crowded  after  Cade.  Hastings  sent 
eleven  soldiers  to  help  him ;  Eye  begged  for  his 
friendship  ;  and  Lydd  sent  its  constable  on  horseback 
to  meet  him,  wrote  him  a  letter  of  excuse  for  not 
joining  him,  and  presented  him  with  a  porpoise.1 
When  Warwick  took  up  the  cry  of  Cade  they  rallied 
to  his  side  ;  and  when  he  brought  back  Henry  the 
Sixth  in  1470  they  again  gave  him  support.2  In 
the  internal  politics  of  the  towns  we  meet  the  same 
temper  ;  and  however  obscure  and  insignificant  were 
the  struggles  of  the  Ports  and  of  the  humble  villages 
that  gathered  around  them,  they  reveal  to  us  the 
militant  spirit  of  self-assertion  which  was  stirring  in 

1  Archseologia  Cantiana,  vii.  234  ;  Hist  MSS.  Com.  v.  520. 

2  See  especially  the  account  of  Canterbury  in  Hist.  MSS.  Com. 
IX.  176-7.  Lydd  incurred  heavy  expenses  in  the  war  of  1460.   In 
Rye  there  is  an  entry  of  1  Qs.  3d.  for  the  expenses  of  the  mayor, 
bailiff,  common  clerk  and  four  jurats  at  Dover,  "  going  and  return- 
ing on  carrying  the  men's  quarters,  when  the  mayor  and  bailiff 
with  four  jurats  were  sent  under  the  heaviest  penalty,  andon  pain 
of  contempt  of  our  lord  the  King."  Another  two  pence  was  spent 
in  giving  them  a  drink  of   malmsey  before  dinner  (Hist.  MSS 
Com.   v.  492,  493)  ;  and  the  same  year  "  the  men  of  the  Lord 
Warwick  entered  the  town  with  a  strong  band  and  took  down  the 
quarter  of  the  man  and  buried  it  in  the  churchyard."     In  1470 
Romney  and  the  other  Cinque  Ports  supported  Warwick  against 
Edward,  1469-70.    (Hist.  MSS.  Com.  v.  545.)   For  Lydd,  p.  525  ; 
and  Sandwich,  Boys'  Sandwich,  676.      At  the  return  of  Henry 
the  Sixth  from  October  1470  to  April  1471,  an  entry  in  Lydd 
records  "  on  the  second  Sunday  after  the  feast  of  St.  Michael  the 
Archangel  in  the  year  of  King  Henry  the  Sixth."     (Hist. 
MSS.  Com.  v.  525.)     The  clerk  did  not  know  what  year  to  call 
it.     For  the  sufferings  of   Kent   in   the  war  see  Warkworth's 
Chronicle,  21-22. 


416         TOWN  LIFE  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY    CH.  XH 

every  hamlet  in  England.  But  with  this  sturdy 
spirit  of  municipal  freedom  the  question  of  federal 
organization  had  nothing  whateve  r  to  do.  We  have 
seen  that  the  trading  privileges  won  in  early  days 
by  the  joint  action  of  the  towns  were  confined  to  the 
supervision  of  the  herring  fair  at  Yarmouth,  and 
that  the  association  never  developed  into  a  great 
commercial  league  after  the  imposing  pattern  of  the 
towns  of  Picardy  or  of  the  Rhine.  Still  less  did 
the  union  resemble  any  of  the  federative  republics 
formed  across  the  water  in  Ponthieu  or  the  Laonnais 
for  mutual  aid  against  the  enemies  of  their  peace  or 
liberties.1  There  is  no  evidence  that  the  confedera- 
tion of  the  Cinque  Ports  afforded  to  its  members  any 
security  of  municipal  freedom,  or  any  extension  of 
the  rights  to  be  won  from  their  several  lords ;  and  as 
a  mattei'  of  fact  this  group  of  favoured  towns  does 
not  seem  to  have  made  the  slightest  advance  on  other 
English  boroughs,  either  in  winning  an  earlier  free- 
dom, or  in  raising  a  higher  standard  of  liberty.  In 
fact  the  history  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  to  prove 
that  there  was  no  more  formidable  opposition  to 
the  growing  democracies  in  the  Kent  and  Sussex 
towns  than  the  respectable  official  company  that 
gathered  at  Romney  and  ate  together  the  annual 
feast  of  the  Court  of  Brotherhood. 

1  Luchaire,  Communes  Franchises,  77,  etc. 


INDEX 


Abbotsbury,  convent  at,  203 

Adamson,  William,  lease  of  Liver- 
pool ferin  to,  271,  note  2 

Admiral,  appointment  of  mayor  as, 
234  ;  Ms  jurisdiction,  i&.,  note  2  ; 
of  Norwich,  245  ;  of  the  Cinque 
Ports,  his  jurisdiction,  392 

Adventurers,  Merchant,  90  ;  their 
rivalry  with  Staple  and  Hanse, 

94,  95  ;    organized    by    charter, 

95,  96 ;    by   Henry  VII.,    96  ; 
growth   of  their    privileges,  ib.; 
settlement  at  Antwerp,  97,  98  ; 
struggle  for  free  trade  in  cloth 
in     the    Netherlands,     99-101  ; 
struggle      with      the      staplers, 
101-103  ;  with  Hanseatic  League, 
103-111  ;    organization  in    Nor- 
way, Sweden,  and  Denmark,  106  ; 
supported  by   Henry  VII.,  Ill, 
112  ;  their  triumph  in  the  north, 
114  ;  progress  from  Edward  III. 
to  Henry  VII.,  122 

"  Advocantes,"  190 
Alderman  of  the  staple,  46,  48 
Aldington,   archbishop's    court   of, 

409 
Aletot,  tax  paid  by  Eye  to  Fecamp, 

387,  note  1 
Alexandria,  centre  of  Mediterranean 

traffic,  77 
Alien,  judicial  combat  in  Fordwich 

with,  221,  note  2 

VOL.    I 


Almshouses,  41,  note  2 

Amusements  in  towns,  145-153 
Andover,  punishment  for  breach  of 

public  duty  in,  181,  note  2 
Antwerp,  trade  of  English  Adven- 
turers at,  94 ;  capital  of  the 
Merchant  Adventurers,  97,  98  ; 
succeeds  Bruges  as  a  centre  of 
commerce,  100 ;  conference  at, 
113 

Apprentices,  kept  only  by  burghers, 
182 

Apprenticeship,  in  towns,  sought  by 
country  labourers,  194 

Archers  of  Reading  in  1371,  16, 
note 

Arms,  view  of,  at  Bridport,  15,  16  ; 
at  Reading,  16,  note 

Arrest,  disputes  about  rights  of, 
351-352,  364-367,  372 

Assemblies  in  the  towns,  223 

Assize  of  wine,  bread,  and  ale,  con- 
troversy as  to,  in  Exeter,  358-9 

Attorneys,  their  numbers  in  Norfolk 
and  Norwich  limited,  58 

Augustine's,  S.,  convent  of,  Canter- 
bury, its  agreement  with  Christ- 
church,  369  ;  disputes  with  the 
town,  371-3  ;  owner  of  Fordwich, 
412  ;  compromise  with  Fordwich, 
414 

Aylesbury,  evasions  of  watch  and 
ward  in,  133 

Aynesargh,  Richard  de,  lease  of 
Liverpool  to,  271,  note  2 

E   E 


418 


INDEX 


B 


Bailiff,  commander  of  the  town  in 
war,  128 ;  his  appointment  as 
king's  steward  and  marshal,  236  ; 
capital,  of  Hereford,  229,  319-320; 
election  of,  in  Liverpool,  270  ;  of 
wards  in  Norwich,  240,  243,  245, 
246  ;  of  Romney,  404-406  ;  of  the 
king,  in  Sandwich,  400-402 

Bailiff-errant,  his  duties,  205 

Baltic,  English  Merchant  Adven- 
turers in,  95 

Barge,  the  admiral's,  245  ;  common, 
of  towns,  87,  140  ;  of  Ipswich, 
85,  note  2  ;  of  London,  87,  note  3  ; 
of  Eomney,  87,  88 

Barnstaple,  granted  to  Sir  John 
Cornwall  and  the  Countess  of 
Huntingdon,  253  ;  its  ferm,  &c., 
in  1273,  id.,  note  3  ;  its  traditions 
as  borough  in  ancient  demesne, 
253-255  ;  byelaws  of,  254  ;  "  Bur- 
gesses of  the  Wynde "  in,  ib.  ; 
complaints  of  lords  of,  about  au- 
thority claimed  by  burghers,  ib. ; 
inquisition  as  to  franchises  of, 
255 ;  charters,  ib. ;  market,  253, 
note  3;  Long  Bridge,  ib.;  its 
wealth  in  thirteenth  and  four- 
teenth centuries,  ib.;  seal,  225, 
note 

Barons  of  the  Cinque  Ports,  386 

Barton,  John,  thief  in  Exeter, 
354 

Battle,  services  due  from  its  bur- 
gesses, 171,  note  2;  its  quarrel  with 
Lydd  about  boundaries,  411  ; 
abbot  of,  owner  of  land  in  Lydd, 
409 

Beaufort,  Cardinal,  214 
Bedford,  opposition  to  commission 
of  enquiry  in,  268,  note  1 

Beer,  its  introduction,  57  ;  English, 

exported  to  Flanders,  ib. 
Bell,   the    common,    161,    180  ;    of 
Bristol,  314,  315  ;    of  Hereford, 
127 ;     Reading,    304 ;     Romney, 
405,  note  1  ;  Brandegoose,  at  Sand- 
wich, 401  ;  of  church,  153  ;  the 
curfew,  324 
Bell-foundries,  55 


Benecke,  captain  of  Danzig  priva- 
teers, 109,  note  2 

Bergen,  staple  set  up  by  English 
adventurers  at,  95  ;  English  ex- 
pelled from,  107 

Berkeley,  owned  by  lay  noble, 
227 ;  privileges  leased  to  the 
burghers  of,  263  ;  relations  with 
its  lords,  264,  267  ;  lords  of,  their 
fight  with  Bristol,  313-315  ;  their 
trading,  316 

Berkeley,  Lord  James,  266 

Berkeley,  Lord  Maurice,  265,  266 
312,  314-315 

Berkeley,  Lord  Thomas,  315 

Berkeley,  Lady,  daughter  of  Mayor 
of  Bristol,  316  ;  her  funeral,  ib. 

Bernard,  the  goldsmith,  his  escape 
from  prison,  374 

Berwick,  government  of,  given  to 
one  of  the  Berkeleys,  264 

Bier,  the  parish,  202 

Billeting,  forbidden  in  Bristol,  210, 
note  3 

Birmingham,  200,  note  2 ;  its  bridges, 
20  ;  its  guild,  ib. 

Bishops  as  lords  of  towns,  281 

Blackwall,  entrepot  of  Diuant  cop- 
perworkers  at,  56 

Bondmen,  not  to  be  admitted  to 
franchise  in  York  and  Bridge- 
north,  196 

Bonvil,  Sir  William,  41,  note  2, 
267,  268,  366 

"  Booners,"  141 

Bordeaux,  its  trade,  87,  118,  119, 
316,  note  1  ;  taken  by  the  French, 
119 

Boroughs,  English,  their  importance 
in  fifteenth  century,  1  ;  created 
by  Edward  L,  11,  note  3  ;  repre- 
sentation in  Parliament,  24,  25  ; 
conditions  of  claiming  the  pro- 
perty of,  218  ;  importance  of 
corporate  succession  of,  219 ; 
classification  of,  227  ;  sympathy 
of  king  with,  in  questions  of  rival 
jurisdiction,  232-3  ;  local  self- 
government  in,  233-237  ;  extortion 
in,  235,  note  1  ;  advantages  gained 
by,  in  times  of  state  troubles, 
237  ;  anxiety  of  king  about 
democratic  movement  in,  247, 


INDEX 


419 


note  3;  granted  to  nobles,  253, 
note  2  ;  in  "ancient  demesne," 
227,  246,  see  Towns 

Borough  Court,  or  Portmote,  attend- 
ance of  burghers  required  at,  180  ; 
wills  enrolled  in,  200,  note  1  ;  at 
Norwich,  239 

Borough  English,  222 

Boston,  house  of  the  Hanseatic 
League  at,  110 

Boulogne,  soldiers  from  Reading  at, 
16,  note 

Boundaries,  preservation  and  per- 
ambulation of,  134 

Boy  Bishop,  148 

Brass,  guns  made  of,  55,  note  4 

Bribes,  system  of,  in  the  towns, 
211-217 

Brickmaking,  its  beginnings  in  Eng- 
land, 56 

Bridges,  repair  of,  144  ;  the  Long, 
at  Barnstaple,  253,  note  3 ;  at 
Birmingham,  20 ;  Canterbury, 
19 ;  Exeter,  144  ;  London,  ib., 
Nottingham,  ib.  ;  Reading,  301, 
note  2 

Bridgenorth,  payment  to  players 
forbidden  in,  152  ;  franchise  of, 
196  ;  complaint  of  the  jurors 
against  the  sheriffs  bailiffs,  207, 
note  1 

Bridge  water,  burgages  held  by  clergy 
at,  175,  note 

Bridport  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
202-203  ;  in  fourteenth  century, 
15  ;  in  fifteenth  century,  15-16  ; 
views  of  arms  at,  ib.  •  fraterni- 
ties in,  ib.  ;  Toll  Hall  and  Guild- 
hall at,  ib.  ;  bell  foundries  at,  55- 
56  ;  collection  for  improving  its 
harbour,  143,  144 ;  rector  and 
parishioners,  157  ;  bequests  for 
the  church,  159,  note ;  manufac- 
tures at,  202  ;  payments  in  kind 
for  ferm,  204-5  ;  advantages  of 
its  obscurity  and  distance  from 
court,  210 

Brinklow,  his  political  ideas,  60, 
note  4 

Bristol  made  a  shire,  12  ;  gives  a 
benevolence  to  the  king,  27,  note 
2  ;  disputes  with  Genoese  mer- 
chants, 91,  note  2  ;  its  contribu- 


tion for  protection  of  traders,  ib., 
note  3  ;  new  channel  dug  for  the 
Frome  at,  142  ;  billeting  forbidden 
in,  210,  note  3  ;  revolt  of  the 
Commons,  312  ;  charter  forfeited, 
ib.,  note  I ;  mayor  of,  freed  from 
oath  to  constable,  313 ;  obtains 
jurisdiction  over  Redcliffe,  314  ; 
fight  with  lords  of  Berkeley,  SIS- 
SIS  ;  difficulties  as  to  jurisdiction 
of  Temple  fee,  313,  note  2;  incor- 
poration of  Redcliffe  with,  ib.,note  ; 
burgesses'  petitions  to  King  and 
Parliament,  315  ;  assault  on  Lord 
Thomas  of  Berkeley,  ib.  ;  pay- 
ment for  confirmation  of  char- 
ters, ib.  ;  sends  men  to  Lord 
Berkeley's  help  at  Nibley,  316  ; 
the  castle  fee  in,  311 ;  con- 
stable of  castle,  312  ;  grant  of 
ferm,  238,  note  3  ;  dispute  about 
ferm,  253,  note  2  ;  S.  Mary's  Hall 
at,  316  ;  Fellowship  of  Merchants, 
89  ;  paving,  18,  note ;  common 
bell,  314, 315  ;  gaol,  315  ;  watch  on 
S.  John's  Eve,  149  ;  compass  first 
used  in  England  by  its  men,  107  ; 
trade  with  Gascony,  119  ;  traders 
from,  settle  in  Bridport,  15  ;  sail 
to  Iceland,  107  ;  Flemish  weavers 
in,  193. 

Britanny,  commercial  treaty  with, 
112 

Broad-cloth  first  mentioned,  52 

Broad  Hill,  court  held  on,  394,  395 

Brodhull,  register  of  its  acts,  398  ; 
see  Brotherhood 

Brotherhood,  court  of,  395-398  ;  see 
Brodhull,  Guestling 

Bruges,  the  staple  at,  45  ;  made 
staple  for  English  cloth  in 
Flanders,  113,  note  3  ;  decline  of 
its  weaving  trade,  65 

Building  in  towns  in  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, 18,  19 

Burgage  rents,  13,  note  2 

Burgage  tenure,  170-173,  200,  note 
2 

Burgesses,  in  the  empire,  first  men- 
tion of,  11,  note  1 ;  decayed,  in 
Preston,  190,  note  3 ;  of  the 
Wynde  in  Barnstaple,  254  ;  their 
qualifications,  170,  171 ;  crafts- 

E   E   2 


INDEX 


men  and  foreigners  admitted  as, 
173  ;  see  Burghers,  Citizens 

Burghers,  mode  of  admission  of, 
178-9 ;  duties,  180-181  ;  privi- 
leges, 181-185  ;  responsibilities 
and  services,  185-188 ;  punish- 
ment of,  for  refusing  [to  serve 
in  municipal  offices,  187,  188  ; 
their  duties  confined  to  town, 
188 ;  the  exclusive  character 
of  the  poorer,  195  ;  claim  to  have 
their  own  courts,  220  ;  growing 
importance  in  the  country,  257  ; 
their  seals,  175  ;  see  Burgesses, 
Citizens 

Burgundy,  Henry  VII. 's  alliance 
with,  4  ;  charter  to  Merchant 
Adventurers  in,  96 

Burgundy,  Duke  of,  grants  charter 
to  English  Merchant  Adventurers, 
96 

C. 

"  Cachepol "  of  abbot  of  S.  Augus- 
tine's, 412 

Cade,  Jack,  his  supporters  in  Cinque 
Ports,  415 

Calais,  the  staple  at,  46  ;  captain  of, 
49  ;  mint  at,  ib.  ;  Likedelers  of, 
90  ;  election  of  governors  of  Mer- 
chant Adventurers  held  at,  96, 
note  6 

Cambridge,  first  notice  of  bricks  at, 
56,  note  3 

Canal-makers,  Dutch,  193 

Cannyges,  of  Bristol,  84,  note  1, 
89,  107 

Canopy,  at  coronation  of  King,  car- 
ried by  representatives  of  Cinque 
Ports,  389 

Canterbury,  royal  borough,  227  ; 
extent  of  its  jurisdiction,  3,  note  ; 
Henry  VII.  received  at,  37,  note  ; 
quarrels  with  Sandwich,  163,  note ; 
Henry  VII. 's  breve  to  enable  in- 
habitants to  resist  demands  of 
King's  purveyors,  210,  note  I  ; 
payment  to  be  excused  from 
sending  ships  to  the  war,  213, 
note  3  ;  relations  with  York  and 
Lancaster,  215,  216  ;  refusal  of 
citizens  to  appear  at  the  King's 
Court  at  Westminster,  230,  note 


2  ;  property  exempt  from  corpor- 
ate authority  310,  note ;  dis- 
pute as  to  jurisdiction  of  city 
coroner,  355,  note  1  ;  dispute  with 
S.  Augustine's,  371-2  ;  with  Christ 
Church,  135-6,  373-382;  with 
convent  of  S.  Gregory,  369 ; 
bridge,  19  ;  charters,  expenses 
connected  with,  211,  note  ;  cathe- 
dral, its  jubilee  festivals,  376  ; 
church  of  S.  Andrew,  380  ;  Black- 
friar's  churchyard,  375  ;  first  main 
drain,  20 ;  expenses  of  feasts, 
372,  note  3  ;  town  festival,  149  ; 
price  of  admission  to  freedom, 
178,  note  5 ;  municipal  debts, 
140,  note  1  ;  gifts,  214-216  ;  hos- 
pitals, 369  ;  Swan  inn,  216  ;  loans 
to  King,  27,  note  2  ;  market,  371- 
2,  377-80 ;  mayor,  probate 
claimed  by,  200,  note  I ;  mace, 
381  ;  king's  mead,  371  ;  mill,  ib., 
372,  381 ;  minstrels,  145,  note;  pav- 
ing, 18,  note  ;  plays,  146  ;  protec- 
tion of  burghers,  185  ;  provision 
for  pilgrims,  375-6  ;  punishment 
for  drawing  knife,  132,  note  2  ;  ex- 
tortions of  sheriff,  207  ;  Staple  - 
gate,  370;  trade  with  Bordeaux, 
118  ;  walls  and  gates,  129,  note  1  ; 
Westgate,  370,  381  ;  see  Augus- 
tine's (S.),  Christ  Church 

Canterbury,  Archbishops  of,  177, 
note  2,  369-371,  409 

Cardiff  requests  copy  of  Hereford 
customs,  228 

Carlisle,  its  "  frelidge,"  180  ;  help 
granted  towards  payment  of  ferm 
in,  231,  note  2  ;  liberties  forfeited, 
247,  note  4 

Carpets,  manufactory  of,  at  Ramsey, 
57 

Castile,  commercial  treaty  with,  120 

Castle  Coombe,  cloth  sold  at,  54, 
note  1 

Castle,  constable  of,  his  authority, 
311-12 

Castle  Fee,  its  independence  of  the 
municipality,  311 

Catalonia,  commercial  treaty  with, 
120 

Caxton,  Thomas, town  clerk  of  Lydd, 
411 


INDEX 


421 


Cemetery,  booths  set  up  in,  at  fair- 
time,  362 
Chaldensham,  the  breaking  to  pieces 

of  the  abbot's  gallows  at,  372 
Charters,   power    of    the   King   to 
withdraw,  211-12  ;  payments  for 
the  confirmation  of,  211  ;  of  incor- 
poration, 219,  note  1  ;  see  Barn- 
staple,  Bristol,  Canterbury,  Ips- 
wich, Leicester,   Lincoln,   Liver- 
pool, Lynn,  Northampton,    Nor- 
wich,    Nottingham,     Plimpton, 
Reading,  Winchester 
Chepin  gavell  in  Reading,  299,  306 
Chepstowe,  its  trade  with  Iceland 

and  Finmark,  107,  note  1 
Ohest,  the  parish,  202  ;  the  common, 

of  Reading,  305,  306 
Chester,  raid  of  Baldwin  of  Rading- 
ton  on,   130 ;   affray  at,  ib.,  note 
1  ;    town  festival,  149  ;  liberties 
forfeited,  247,  note  4  ;  silting  up 
of  harbour,  270 
Chester,  Earl  of,  Liverpool  granted 

to,  270 

Children  of  citizens,  age  of  taking 

up  duties  of  citizenship,  194  ;  of 

non-burgesses,  age  of   beginning 

work,  194-5 

Chimneys  of  tiles  or  brick,  houses 

to  be  provided  with,  194 
Christ  Church,  Canterbury,  its  agree- 
ment with  S.  Augustine's,  369  ; 
ownership  of  Sandwich,  399-400  ; 
owner  of    land  in   Lydd,    409  ; 
quarrels  with  Fordwich  about  the 
quay,  413  ;  see  Canterbury 
Christopher,  the  (ship),  316,  note  1 
Church,   hostile   to    the    formation 

of  communes,  279,  note  2 
Church-ales  at  Plymouth,  160,  161  ; 

at  Yaxley,  161,  note 
Churches,  parish,  their  various  uses, 
153-156  ;   apportionment  of  seats, 
154;  townspeople  lay  rectors  of, 
157  ;  various  expenses,  158-161  ; 
bequests  for,  159  ;  rebuilding  of, 
in  15th  century,  18 
Churchyards  and  ecclesiastical  pre- 
cincts enclosed  by  walls,  335 
Cinque  Ports,  their  treaties    with 
"  French  Shipmen,"   4,    note   I ; 
house  of  elected   mayor  or  jurat 


who  declined  to  serve,  pulled  down, 
187  ;  jurats  and  barons  of  the, 
386  ;  confederation  of,  386-399  ; 
privileges,  387-389  ;  ownership  of, 
387,  notes  1  and  2 ;  j  ustices  itinerant 
shut  out  from,  388  ;  writ  of  error 
in,  388,  note  2  ;  no  trial  by 
jury  in,  388,  note  6  ;  support 
Simon  de  Moutfort,  388,  note  5  ; 
heavy  charges  for  defence  borne 
by,  389-390  ;  payments  for  main- 
tenance of  liberties  of,  390,  note  2  ; 
monopoly  threatened  by  Yar- 
mouth, 394  ;  jealous  watch  against 
infractions  of  privileges,  398  ;  ac- 
cuser often  executioner  in,  412, 
note  2  ;  confederation  affords  no 
security  to  members  against  their 
lords,  414  ;  various  jurisdictions, 
398  ;  admiral  of,  392  ;  no  coro- 
ner in,  388,  note  1  ;  trading  privi- 
leges, 414-415  ;  confederation,  un- 
like confederations  abroad,  415  ; 
supports  Cade,  ib.  ;  supports 
Warwick,  ib.  ;  courts  of,  see 
Brotherhood,  Guestling,  Shepway 
Cirencester,  295 

Citizens,  their  busy  life,  161  ;  inde- 
pendence, 177 ;  laws  passed  in 
Norwich  and  Worcester  to  com- 
pel men  to  become,  190 ;  age 
for  taking  up  duties,  194  ;  out- 
numbered by  the  unenfranchised 
classes  in  the  towns,  196  ;  dis- 
tinguished from  "natives"  in 
Hereford,  318 ;  see  Burgesses, 
Burghers 
Clarence,  Duke  of,  present  from 

Canterbury  to,  215 
Clergy  as  citizens,  175,  note 
Clisheath,  fight  on,  267 
Clock,  the  town,  182 
Clock-house,  payments  for,  in  Read- 
ing, 304 

Cloth,  altered  conditions  of  produc- 
tion, 54 ;  sold  in  London,  ib. 
note  I  ;  taxes  on,  81,  note  1 ; 
struggle  for  its  free  impor- 
tation into  Netherlands,  99, 
100  ;  undressed,  its  export  for- 
bidden, 110  ;  terms  of  sale  and 
finishing,  granted  to  Henry  VII. 
by  Flanders,  11 3,  note  3  ;  woollen, 


422 


INDEX 


its  export  allowed  to  Portuguese, 
121,  note  2  ;  manufacture  pro- 
tected by  government,  66,  67 ; 
attempt  to  confine  its  export  to 
London,  69  ;  dressing  of,  disputes 
about,  70  ;  seal  for  sealing  it,  in 
Reading,  308 ;  broad,  52  ;  see 
Trade 

Cloth-workers,  rivalry  with  wool- 
growers,  68 

Clothiers  distinguished  from  drap- 
ers, 67 

"  Clothing,  Great,"  of  Worcester, 
138,  note 

Coal,  its  early  use  in  London,  55, 
note  1 

CcEur,  Jacques,  114 

Colchester,  its  condition,  c.  1300, 
14  ;  progress  in  the  14th  cent., 
ib.,  15  ;  burghers  not  to  be  ap- 
pointed in  any  quest  or  assize 
outside  the  borough,  188,  note  2  ; 
Norwich  system  of  government 
imitated  by,  238,  note  2  ;  gallows, 
2,  note  ;  moot  hall,  14  ;  wool  hall, 
ib. 

Cologne,  Hanse  of,  75,  76,  note  1 

Commerce,  treaties  of,  66  ;  govern- 
ment protection  of,  66, 67  ;  by  sea, 
its  early  routes,  75-77  ;  between 
England  and  the  Baltic,  83  ;  its 
two  great  routes,  83  ;  in  hands  of 
foreign  carriers,  83,  84 ;  growth 
of  private  enterprise,  88,89;  trans- 
ferred from  foreign  carrying 
vessels  to  those  of  English  adven- 
turers, 94  ;  see  Trade,  Treaties 

Common,  rights  of,  136,  137,  181 

Commons,  House  of,  relation  of 
boroughs  to,  24  ;  control  over 
taxation,  25,  note  3  ;  height  of 
power  in  early  15th  century,  26  ; 
petition  for  working  of  mines,  55, 
note  1  ;  see  Parliament 

Communes,  the  Church  hostile  to 
the  formation  of,  279,  note  2  ;  of 
France,  contrast  between  their 
history  and  that  of  the  English 
towns,"  29-32 

Commuflitas,  its  meaning,  167-168  ; 
early  government,  169-171 

Compass,  its  first  recorded  use  in 
England,  107 


Compurgation,  221,  note  2 
Conesford  Ward,  Norwich,  239-40 
Confederation,     contrast     between 
English  boroughs  and  Continental 
towns  as  to,  384-385  ;  of  Cinque 
Ports,  386-99,  414-416 
Constable,  dispute  about  election  of, 
in    Reading,    304,   306  ;    of  the 
castle,  his  authority,  311-312 
Convents,  towns    subject    to,   227, 

295 
Copes,  regulations  about  use  of,  at 

Plymouth,  158 
Copper  works  at  Dinant,    56 ;    in 

England,  ib. 

Cornwall,  Sir  John,  Lord  of  Barn- 
staple,  253 
Cornwall,  its  silver  mines,  55,  note 

1  ;  tin  works,  83 

Coroner,  business  of,  203  ;  dispute 
in  Exeter  about  the  jurisdiction 
of,    355  ;    of    Devonshire,    355  ; 
in  Cinque  Ports,  388,  note  1 
Corpus  Christi,  guild  of,  150, 151 
Coteler,  J.,  lieutenant  of  mayor  of 

Exeter,  346 

Court,  the  papal,  its  demands  from 
Canterbury  cathedral, 376  ;  see  Ad- 
miralty,   Borough,    Brotherhood, 
Curia  Comitatus,  Guestling,  Hun- 
dred,    King's,     Leet,     Orphans, 
Portmote,     Sheriffs,      Shepway, 
Steward's  Hall  Port,  Tolbooth 
Craft  guilds,  150 
Crafts,  their    formation  into   close 

companies,  195 

Craftsmen,  their  political  import- 
ance, 60  ;  admitted  as  burgesses, 
173 

Cranmer,  his  refusal  to  lease  out 
bailiwick  of  Romney  to  towns- 
people, 408-9 ;  his  lease  of  the 
bailiwick  of  Hythe  to  townspeople, 
408, 

Cranbrooke,  cloth  sold  at,  54,  note  1 
Crete,  English  merchants  buy  wine 

in,  116 

Criers  in  the  towns,  161-162, 180 
Cunningham,  Sir  Thomas,  98,  note  5 
Curfew  bell  in  Winchester,  324 
Curia  Comitatus  at  Norwich,  239 
Customs,  Hereford,    317  ;  copy  of, 
asked  for  by  Cardiff,  228 


INDEX 


423 


J) 


Danzig,    English    cloth-dealers   at, 

95 ;     English    colony     at,     104, 

note  6 
Dartmouth,  its  parish  church,  157, 

note  2 

Davison,  Sir  W.,  98,  note  5 
Dean,  Forest  of,  its  forges,  54 
Demesne,  ancient,  boroughs  in,  227- 

229 

Dengemarsh,  409 
Denge  Ness,  409 
Denmark,  English  traders  expelled 

from,   66  ;    Henry  VII.'s  treaty 

with,  113 
Derby,  franchises  of,  forfeited,  247, 

note  4 
Derby,  Earl  of,  Liverpool  granted 

to,  270 

Devon,  its  silver  mines,  55,  note  I 
Devon,  Earl  of,  his  fight  with  Lord 

William  Bonvil,  267-8 
Devonshire,  the  coroner  of,  355 
Devonshire,    Earls    of,    266,    366  ; 

conflict  of  Exeter  with,  339,  340 
Dinant,  its  relation  to  the  Hanseatic 

League,  82,  note  3  ;  copper- workers 

of,  their  trade  with  England,  56 
Disfranchised  table,  181 
Domesday,      343,     344,     345  ;     of 

Ipswich,  225 
Dominicans,    their    settlement    in 

Winchester,  323 
Doncaster,  269,  note 
Dorchester,  extent  of  its  jurisdiction, 

3,  note ;    sheriffs   court   at,  203, 

204 

Dorset,  its  silver  mines,  55,  note  1 
Dover,   member  of  Cinque    Ports, 

386 ;     ownership    of,     387,    note 

1  ;    church    of   S.    James,  393 ; 

the     Lord     Warden's     court    of 

appeal  held  at,  393-394  ;  meeting 

of  deputations  from    Lydd  and 

Romney  at,  411  ;  punishment  of 

thief,  221,  note  2  ;  lieutenant  of, 

213,  note  1,  391  ;  castle,  constable 

of,  390,  392 
Drain,     at     Canterbury,     20 ;     at 

Exeter,  361 
Drapers  distinguished  from  clothiers, 


67  ;  of  London,  their  first  charter, 

52,  note  3 
Duel    in    Leicester,    221,    note    2 ; 

freedom  from,  in  Lincoln,  ib. 
Dunwich,  238,  note  3 


Ecclesiastical  estates,  towns  on,  227, 
277-281;  tenants  of,  their  atti- 
tude in  the  towns,  191,  192 

Edmund  Crouchback,  269,  note ; 
270,  271 

Edmund,  Bishop  of  Exeter,  343 

Edward  I.,  boroughs  created  by,  11, 
note  3 ;  charter  to  Norwich, 
242  ;  grant  to  Lydd,  410 

Edward  II.,  advantages  to  towns  of 
disorders  under,  237 

Edward  III.,  his  dealings  with  the 
staple,  45, 46  ;  relations  with 
Florentine  merchants,  78,  79 ; 
borrows  money  of  Liibeck  mer- 
chants, 83  ;  advantages  to  towns 
of  his  commercial  policy,  237 

Edward  IV.,  his  relations  with  the* 
Hanse,  109-110  ;  grants  fresh 
franchises  to  Exeter,  367,  note  2 

Egypt,  Venetians  driven  out  of,  114 

Elbing,  market  at,  104 

Election  of  town  officers,  224,  235 

Empire,  first  mention  of  burgesses 
in,  11,  note  1 

Enclosure  of  churchyards  and  ec- 
clesiastical precincts  within  walls, 
335 

Engineers,  Dutch  and  Flemish, 
employed  in  England,  142,  143, 
note,  403 

England,  its  comparative  unimport- 
ance in  Europe  in  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, 32,  33  ;  character  of  its  his- 
tory in  fifteenth  century,  35-44 ; 
classes  of  its  population  c.  1453,  60 

English  language,  prayers  in,  used 
by  a  Norfolk  guild,  42,  note 

Escheator,  the  King's,  208 ;  ap- 
pointment of  mayor  as,  ib.,  note 
1  ;  term  of  office,  234,  note  3 

Essex,  Dom  Robert,  manufactures 
silk  at  Westminster,  57,  note  2 

Exe  Island,  339 


424 


INDEX 


Exeter,  its  early  government,  338  ; 
jurisdiction  of  Earls  of  Devon- 
shire in,  339  ;  disputes  with  them, 
266,  339;  with  the  cathedral, 
340-368 ;  discussion  between 
bishop  and  mayor,  155  ;  election 
of  ShOlingford  as  mayor,  340,  341 ; 
grant  of  Richard  of  Almayne  to, 
357  ;  grants  of  Edward  IV.  to, 
367,  note  2  ;  almshouses  at,  41, 
note  2 ;  right  of  arrest  in, 
364-366  ;  assize  of  wine,  bread, 
&c.,  358-9  ;  bridge  at,  144  ;  Broad 
Gate,  353  ;  great  drain,  361  ; 
Canon's-street,  360  ;  controversy 
as  to  common  use  of  cathedral, 
362-364 ;  as  to  jurisdiction  of 
coroner,  355  ;  cathedral  close,  352, 
353,  355  ;  provision  for  ferm  in, 
359  ;  Fish-street,  360  ;  price  of 
admission  to  freedom,  178, 
note  5  ;  gates,  dispute  for  con- 
trol of,  361,  362  ;  Guildhall, 
341,351,356  ;  hospitals,  41,  note  2  ; 
law  against  livery,  339;  market,«i. 
359,  360  ;  St.  Martin's-street,  360  ; 
paving  of,  18,  note ;  bishop's 
prison,  362  ;  St.  Peter's  fee,  357  ; 
Recorder,  345,  347  ;  maces,  339, 
367 ;  Black  Roll,  345;  S.  Stephen's 
fee,  343  ;  town-hall,  344  ;  great 
tower,  361-2  ;  warden  of  the 
poor,  41,  note  2  ;  controversy  as  to 
watch  and  ward,  357,  358  ;  wine 
gavell,  359 

Exeter,  Edmund,  bishop  of,  343 

Exmouth,  port,  346,  359 

Export  trade,  revenue  from,  under 
Henry  VII.  and  VIII.,  58  ;  in- 
dustrial changes  occasioned  by, 
67  ;  disputes  caused  by,  between 
merchants  and  artizans,  70 ;  see 
Trade 

Extortion  in  the  boroughs,  235, 
note  1 


F 


Fairs  and  markets  forbidden  to  be 
held  in  sanctuaries,  156  ;  forbid- 
den on  Sundays  and  feast  days, 
156,  note  ;  of  Ripon,  130  ;  of 
Tetbuiy,  314  ;  St.  Giles's,  at  Win- 


chester, 324,  329  ;  at  Yarmouth, 
395,  396,  415 

Fastolf,  Sir  John,  259,  note  2  ;  267, 
note  I 

Faversham,  its  incorporation  under 
mayor  and  jurats,  398,  note  2 

Fecamp,  abbey  of,  its  relations  to 
Hastings,  Winchelsea,  and  Rye, 
387,  note  1 

Fees  on  admission  to  freedom  of 
town,  178  ;  in  kind  at  Wells,  ib. 

Fellowship,', Merchants',  in  Bristol, 
89  ;  in  London,  attempt  to  mono- 
polize the  export  of  cloth,  69  ;  of 
the  mayor  of  Exeter,  346,  353,  366 

Felon,  dispute  about  the  seizure  of 
the  goods  of,  in  Exeter,  354 

Ferm  of  towns,  collection  of,  205  ; 
settlement  of,  connected  with 
election  of  mayor,  218,  note  ;  pro- 
vision for  payment  of,  231,  note  1, 
244,  359  ;  leasing  out  of,  238,  note 
3,  247,  note  4 

Festivals,  local,  149  ;  complaints  of 
their  decay,  151  ;  jubilee,  at  Can- 
terbury cathedral,  376 

Feudal  estates,  condition  of  towns 
on,  250,  251  ;  lords,  struggle  of  the 
boroughs  with,  198-200,  255-257 

Finance  of  towns,  138-141 

Fines  paid  to  be  free  of  holding 
municipal  offices,  187,  note  1  ;  of 
borough  or  manor  courts,  granted 
to  citizens,  231 

Fineux,  Master  John,  justiciar,  214 

Florence  adopts  free  trade,  117  ; 
Henry  VII. 's  commercial  treaty 
with,  ib.  ;  its  trading  importance, 
78 ;  loans  of  its  merchants  to 
Edward  III.,  ib.,  79  ;  commercial 
revival  after  acquisition  of  Leg- 
horn, 79 

Folkestone,  punishment  of  thief  at, 
221,  note  2 

Fordwich,  227,  369  ;  under  master- 
ship of  Sandwich,  411,  412 ; 
extent  of  its  territory,  412  ; 
jurisdiction  of  Abbot  of  S. 
Augustine's,  ib.,  413  ;  quarrels 
with  Christ  Church  about  quay, 
ib.  ;  regulations  and  taxations 
imposed  by  Sandwich  on,  ib. ; 
compromise  with  S.  Augustine's 


INDEX 


425 


as  to  control  of  river  and  weirs, 
414  ;  capital  punishment  in,  412  ; 
judicial  combat  with  alien  in,  221, 
•note  2 ;  Hundred  court,  412  ; 
jurisdiction  of  mayor,  ib.  ;  its 
officers,  ib.  ;  prisons,  ib.  ;  Thefes- 
well,  ib. 

Foreigners,  admitted  as  burgesses, 
173,  178,  note  5 ;  limitation  of 
their  rights,  184 

Forfeiture  of  town  privileges,  247, 
note  4  ;  of  citizenship,  179,  180 

Fortescue,  Sir  John,  chief  justice, 
59,  346 

France,  condition  of  people  in,  as 
described  by  Fortescue,  59 

Franchise  forfeited  by  forsaking 
town  for  a  year  and  a  day,  179  ; 
refusal  to  take  up,  186,  328  ;  to 
be  confined  to  members  of  craft 
guild,  195,  196  ;  bondmen  born 
not  to  be  admitted  to,  in  York 
and  Bridgenorth,  196  ;  of  Lynn, 
controlled  by  the  Bishop  of  Nor- 
wich, 286  ;  see  Freedom 

Franciscans  in  Winchester,  323 

Frankpledge,  view  of,  dispute  in 
Lynn  about,  290,  294 

Fraternities  at  Bridport,  16 

Freedom,  municipal,  ways  of  win- 
ning, 177,  note  1  ;  mode  and  terms 
of  admission  to,  178,  179  ;  lost 
by  breach  of  public  duty,  180  ; 
mode  of  recovery  in  Hereford, 
180,  note  3  ;  classes  shut  out  from, 
189,  190 

Freemen,  their  decrease  in  Romney 
and  Winchester,  190 

Freeman's  prison,  185 

Free-traders,  their  settlement  out- 
side the  towns,  192,  193 

"Frelidge  "  at  Carlisle,  180 

G 

Gallows  and  pit,  right  of,  2,  note 
Gallows  of  prior  of  Christ  Church, 
Canterbury,  373  ;  the  abbot's,  at 
Chaldenshain,  372  ;  of  Colchester, 
2,  note  ;  Southampton,  ib.  ;  Wor- 
cester, 310 

Gaol,  the  common,  of  Bristol,  315 
Gascony,its  trade  with  England,  119 


Gates,  dispute  about  control  of,  in 
Exeter,  362  ;  in  Winchester,  324 

Gate,  the  Broad,  of  Exeter,  353 

Gaunt,  John  of,  253,  note  2,  260, 
note  2,  270 

Gavell,  the  wine,  in  Exeter,  359,  see 
Chepin 

Genoa,  its  trade,  79,  80 ;  bank  of 
S.  George,  80  ;  relations  of  its 
traders  with  England,  114,  note, 
115;  proposal  to  forbid  trade  with, 
116;  disputes  of  its  merchants 
with  those  of  Bristol,  91,  note  2 

Germin,  treasurer  of  Exeter,  346 

Gestling,  drowning  of  felons  in  the, 
221,  note  2 

Glass,  English,  forbidden  in  Beau- 
champ  Chapel  at  Warwick,  56, 
note  4 

Glass-painting,  early  English,  56 

Gloucester  made  a  shire,  12  ;  owned 
by  King,  227  ;  custody  of,  given 
to  one  of  the  Berkeleys,  264  ; 
bell  foundries  at,  55,  56  ;  paving 
of,  18,  note 

Gloucester,  Duke  of,  at  York,216,217 

Gloucester,  Earl  of,  his  gallows  at 
Worcester,  310 

Godbeate,  liberty  of,  in  Winchester, 
324 

Goldsmiths  of  London,  their  wealth, 
58 

Grendon,  Simon,  Mayor  of  Exeter, 
41,wofe  2 

Griffith,  David  ap,  grant  of  ferm  of 
Liverpool  to,  275 

Grimsby,  regulation  as  to  taxes  in, 
355,  note  2 

Guestling,  courts  of,  397 ;  see 
Brotherhood 

Guild  at  Birmingham,  20  ;  of  Corpus 
Christi,  150, 151  ;  of  Young  Men 
at  S.  Edmundsbury,  296,  297  ; 
shopmen's,  at  Hull,  89,  note  2  ;  of 
merchants  at  Lynn,  89  ;  at 
Malmesbury,  dispute  about,  302, 
note  2  ;  of  Nottingham,  rights  of 
taxation  given  to,  355,  note  2  ;  of 
Totnes,  251,  252  ;  of  Our  Lady 
and  S.  George  at  Plymouth,  158  ; 
at  York,  42,  note,  89,  note  2 

Guilds,  festivals  of,  150 

Guild  Hall,  see  Hall 


426 


INDEX 


Guild  Merchant,  its  importance  in 
dependent  towns,  302,  303 ;  of 
Ipswich,  224,  225  ;  Leicester,  355, 
note  2  ;  Liverpool,  270 ;  Lynn, 
286, 288  ;  Reading,  300,  303,  304  ; 
Totnes,  175,  note  ;  claimed  by  S. 
Edmundsbury,  297,  298 

Guns,  English-made,  their  supe- 
riority, 55 

H 

Hadley,  cloth  sold  at,  54,  note  1 

Hall,  the  common,  of  Romney,  129, 
note  2,  403,  405,  note  1  ;  of  Sand- 
wich, 401  ;  the  guild,  of  Bridport, 
16  ;  Exeter,  341,  351,  356  ;  Lon- 
don, 378,  note  2  ;  Lynn,  283 ;  Read- 
ing, 300, 304, 305  ;  Winchester,  324 

Hanse  of  Cologne,  75,  76,  note  1  ; 
Flemish,  in  London,  76 

Hanseatic  League,  81, 82 ;  its  carrying 
trade,  83;  disputes  with  Lynn  mer- 
chants, 91,  note  2  ;  struggle  with 
English  Merchant  Adventurers, 
103-111  ;  gathers  fleet  against 
England,  109  ;  supports  Edward 
IV.,  ib.;  Edward  IV.'s  treaty 
with,  110;  its  guildhall  in  Lon- 
don, ib.;  house  at  Boston  and 
Lynn,  ib.;  its  decline,  ib.,  Ill; 
negotiations  with  Henry  VII.  at 
Antwerp,  113  ;  expels  English 
traders  from  Denmark,  66  ;  suc- 
ceeds Hanse  of  Cologne  in  the 
carrying  trade,  77 

Harbledown,  hospital  of  S.  Nicholas 
at,  369 

Harbours,  making  and  improving, 
142-144 

"Harry  Grace  a  Dieu,"  the,  84,  note  1 

Hastings,  386  ;  castle,  387,  note  I 

Haute,  William,  lord  of  the  manor 
of  Bishopsbourne,  216,  note  2 

Hemp,  grown  at  Bridport,  202 

Henry  III.,  advantages  to  towns  of 
his  reign,  237  ;  charter  to  Liver- 
pool, 270  ;  to  Norwich,  242 

Henry  IV.  supports  the  Merchant 
Adventurers,  95, 96,  105,  106  ;  ad- 
vantages to  towns  of  his  political 
insecurity,  237  ;  charter  to  Nor- 
wich, 245-6 

Henry  V.  forbids  English  trade  with 


Iceland,  106  ;  plans  a  royal  navy, 
86  ;  advantages  to  towns  of  his 
financial  needs,  237 

Henry  VI.,  Canterbury  associated 
with  the  party  of,  215 ;  advantages 
to  towns  of  tumults  of  his  reign, 
237  ;  charter  to  Barnstaple,  255 

Henry  VII.,  his  position  among 
English  sovereigns,  73,  74  ;  re- 
ceived at  Canterbury,  37,  note  ; 
enforces  Navigation  Act,  94  ;  pat- 
ron of  the  Merchant  Adventurers, 
96,  111,  112 ;  international  treaties 
of  commerce,  66  ;  renews  treaty 
with  Brittany,  112  ;  treaties  with 
Burgundy,  4  ;  commercial  treaty 
with  Florence,  117 ;  with  Riga, 
113  ;  with  Scandinavia,  ib.;  with 
Venice,  118  ;  confirms  treaty  of 
Utrecht,  112  ;  negotiations  with 
Hanseatic  League  at  Antwerp, 
113 ;  treatment  of  Lombards,  116  ; 
secures  protection  for  English 
merchants  in  Bordeaux,  119 ; 
stipulations  for  free  trade  with 
Spain,  120 

Herbert,  bishop  of  Norwich,  282 

Hereford,  municipal  alnishouse  at, 
41,  note  2  ;  duties  of  its  citizens  to 
their  chief  magistrate,  126  ;  town 
bell,  127  ;  mode  of  recovery  of 
freedom,  180,  note  3 ;  the  burghers' 
account  of  their  freedom,  199,  200; 
law  against  maintainers  or  pro- 
tectors, 220,  221;  trial  by  combat 
abolished,  ib. ;  customs,  317  ; 
relations  with  lay  and  ecclesias- 
tical lords  and  their  tenants  within 
its  liberties,  317-320  ;  distinction 
drawn  between  "  citizens "  and 
"  natives,"  318  ;  authority  over 
those  privileged  to  trade  in 
town,  318, 319;  capital  bailiff,  229, 
319,  320  ;  punishment  of  a  vaga- 
bond, 319,  320;  tenants  of  various 
fees  allowed  to  plead  in  the  courts 
of,  320 ;  refusal  to  give  Cardiff 
copy  of  customs,  228,  229 

Highway,  the  king's,  sale  of  mer- 
chandise in,  156 

Holcraft,  Thomas,  ferm  of  Liverpool 
let  to,  275 

Holland,  engineers  from,  employed 


INDEX 


427 


at  Hythe,  142, 143,  note  ;  at  Sand- 
wich, 142 

"  Holland  "  linen  made  in  England, 
57 

Hollingbroke,  ward  in  Romney 
named  after,  402,  403 

Horn,  the  common,  161 ;  at  Dover, 
178,  note  5  ;  of  S.  Edmundsbury, 
296  ;  of  Romney,  404,  405,  note  1 

Hospital  at  Exeter,  41,  note  2  ;  at 
Sandwich,  ib. ;  the  Magdalen, 
Winchester,  328,  329  ;  of  S. 
Nicholas,  Harbledown,  369 

Hospital  of  S.  John,  Worcester, 
refusal  of  its  tenants  to  aid  in 
taxes,  &c.,  357,  note  4 

House  built  by  burgher  as  security 
on  admission  to  freedom,  179  ;  of 
burgher  must  be  kept  in  proper 
repair,  ib.,  180  ;  of  stone,  193  ;  the 
Queen's,  at  Winchester,  323 

Hull,  shipbuilding  at,  89  ;  shipmen's 
guild  at,  89,  note  2 

Hundred,  freedom  from  officers  of, 
232,  233 

Hundred  court  in  Fordwich,  412  ; 
Sandwich,  401 

Huntingdon,  perambulation  of  its 
boundaries,  134,  note 

Huntingdon,  Countess  of,  owner  of 
Barnstaple,  253 

Huy,  burgesses  at,  11,  note  1 

Hythe,  ownership  of,  227,  387,  note 
1  ;  member  of  Cinque  Ports,  386  ; 
payment  towards  renewal  of 
Cinque  Ports  charters,  390,  note  2; 
Cranmer's  lease  of  bailiwick  to 
townspeople,  408  ;  appointment 
of  bailiff,  ib.,  note  ;  grant  of  mayor 
to,  ib.  ;  new  harbour  made  at 
(1412),  142,  143;  subscriptions  for 
new  steeple,  160,  note 


Iceland,   English   Adventurers    in, 

106,  107 

Income-tax  in  towns,  139 
Incorporation,  charters  of,  219,  note  I 
Industry,  revolution  in,  during  14th 

and  15th  centuries,  39,  40,  44, 45  ; 

changes  in,  67,  70,  71  ;  relations 


of  government  to,  67,  70-72;  state 
protection  of,  72,  73 

Inferiores,  in  Lynn,  193,  note 

Inns  of  London,  378,  note  2;  bailiffs 
and  jurats  allowed  to  hold,  in 
Romney,  404,  note  2;  the  "  Swan  " 
at  Canterbury,  216 

Intercursus  Magnus,  112 

Ipswich,  archbishop  of  Canterbury 
given  right  to  trade  in,  177,  note  2; 
general  assembly,  224  ;  barge,  85, 
note  2  ;  charter  from  John,  223, 
224  ;  charter  withdrawn,  247,  note 
4  ;  Domesday  Roll,  225  ;  election 
of  officers,  224  ;  Guild  Merchant, 
ib.,  224,  225  ;  ordinances,  224  ; 
arrest  of  Scotch  priests,  230,  note 
3  ;  common  seal,  225  ;  guardian- 
ship of  sea,  234,  note  2 

Ireland,  its  trade  with  Liverpool,  270 

Irishmen,  feeling  against,  in  the 
towns,  173,  174,  note  1 

Iron,  trade  in  England,  54;  increase 
in  price,  55 ;  imported  from 
Sweden  and  Spain,  55 

Italy,  merchants  of,  their  privileges 
in  England,  78  ;  expulsion  from 
London,  329,  330  ;  hire  houses  in 
Winchester,  330  ;  settle  in  South- 
ampton, ib. 


Jewry  of  Bishop's  Lynn,  283 
John,  advantages  to  townfc  of  his 
money  difficulties,   237  ;   charter 
to   Ipswich,   223 ;    to   Liverpool, 
270  ;  to  Lynn,  283 
Jurats  of  the  Cinque  Ports,  386 
Jury,   citizens    from    twelve  years 
old  might  serve  on,  184  ;  exemp- 
tion from  serving  on,  granted  to 
burghers  of  Reading,  306  ;  pay- 
ments to  "  friendly,"  212  ;  no  trial 
by,  in  Cinque  Ports,  388,  note  6 
Justices,   itinerant,   phut  out  from 
Cinque  Ports,  388  ;  of  the  Peace, 
247 


K 


Kent,  men  of,  their  evil  reputation 
in  Middle  Ages,  415 


428 


INDEX 


Kiln  of  feudal  lord,  199 

King,  the,  and  Commons,  25,  note  3, 
26  ;  his  sovereign  rights,  207-209  ; 
various  officers  of,  who  visited 
the  towns,  208-210  ;  power  of,  to 
withdraw  or  question  the  value  of 
charters  and  ancient  customs,  211, 
212  ;  as  lord  of  manor,  229- 
232  ;  his  sympathy  with  borough 
in  questions  as  to  rival  jurisdic- 
tions, 232,  233  ;  his  difficulty  in 
finding  sufficient  officers,  234  ; 
power  of  granting  privileges  be- 
yond that  of  other  lords,  263,  note 
2  ;  loans  to,  27,  note  2,  305,  note  1 

King's  court,  208 


Labour,  division  of,  67  ;  forced,  in 
towns,  141,  142 

Landowners,  unfavourable  con- 
ditions of  life  of,  258-268 

Language,  English,  prayers  in,  used 
by  a  Norfolk  guild,  42,  note 

Laonnais,  federative  republic  of,  415 

Law,  king's,  and  town  law,  236,  note 

Law  day,  business  done  at,  203 

Law  Merchant,  48 

Lawsuits,  increase  caused  by  growth 
of  trade,  58  ;  of  nobles,  266 

Leet  in  Norwich,  240,  242,  243 

Leet  court,  336  ;  in  Lynn,  288,  294  ; 
in  Norwich,  230,  note  3  ;  in  Not- 
tingham, 336,  note  3 

Leghorn  won  by  Florence,  79 

Leicester,  owned  by  lay  noble,  227  ; 
dispute  about  election  of  mayor, 
235,  note  2  ;  town  property,  269, 
note ;  charter  from  Edmund 
Crouchback,  ib.  ;  regulations 
as  to  taxes,  355,  note  2  ;  Guild 
Merchant,  ib.  ;  duel  in,  221,  note 
2  ;  petition  for  abolition  of 
"borough  English"  in,  222 

"  Libel  of  English  Policy,"  61,  62  ; 
the  second,  62-64 

Likedelers  of  Calais,  90 

Lincoln,  charter  of,  238,  note  2;  com- 
plaint about  trials  in,  336,  337  ; 
freedom  from  duel,  221,  note  2 

Linen  manufacture,  its  beginnings 
in  England,  57 


Lisbon,  commercial  treaty  with,  121 

Lisle,  Lord,  his  death  at  Nibley 
Green,  267 

Liverpool,  burgages  in,  172  ;  takes 
place  of  Chester  as  landing  place, 
270 ;  trade  with  Ireland,  ib.  • 
common  seal,  ib. ;  election  of 
bailiffs,  ib.  ;  charter  from  John, 
ib. ;  from  Henry  III.,  ib. ;  granted 
to  constable  of  Lancaster  Castle, 
ib. ;  resumed  by  John,  ib. ;  to  Earl 
of  Chester,  ib. ;  to  Earl  of  Derby, 
ib. ;  to  Edmund  Crouchback,  ib. ; 
passed  by  marriage  to  John  of 
Gaunt,  ib. ;  Quo  Warranto  in,  ib.r 
271  ;  first  mayor,  218,  note,  271 ; 
leases  of  fee  form,  218,  note,  270, 
271 ;  liberties  usurped  by  Edmund 
Crouchback,  271  ;  dependence  on 
lord,  272  ;  reverts  to  crown,  ib. ; 
petition  of  burgesses,  ib.,  note  3  ; 
relations  with  Molyneux  and 
Stanley,  273-276  ;  grant  of  ferm  to 
David  ap  Griffith,  275  ;  ferm  let 
to  Thomas  Holcraft,  ib. ;  granted 
to  corporation,  ib. ;  revenue,  273, 
note  1 

Livery,  339;  town  laws  against,  257, 
268  ;  supplied  from  lord's  estate, 
260 

Loans,  voluntary,  from  towns  to  the 
king,  27,  note  2 

Lombards  settled  in  London,  81  ; 
their  relations  with  Edward  IV., 
Richard  III.,  and  Henry  VII. , 
116;  persecution  of,  in  London, 
ib. 

London  hires  out  its  common  barge, 
87,  note  3 ;  bell  foundries  in,  55, 
56 ;  first  notice  of  bricks  in, 
56,  note  3 ;  bridge  of,  144 ; 
drapers  of,  52,  note  3  ;  cloth  sold 
in,  54,  note  1 ;  use  of  coal  in,  55, 
note  1  ;  wealth  of  its  goldsmiths, 
58;  guildhall,  378,  note  2;  Flemish 
Hanse  of,  76  ;  guildhall  of  Han- 
seatic  League,  110  ;  inns,  378,  note 
2  ;  Italian  merchants  expelled 
from,  329,  330  ;  Lombards  in,  81, 
116  ;  house  of  Cologne  merchants 
in,  T6,note  1  ;  Merchants'  Fellow- 
ship of,  its  attempt  to  monopo- 
lize export  of  cloth,  69 ; 


INDEX 


429 


annexes  Middlesex,  219,  note  3  ; 
Recorder  of,  372,  378,  note  2  ;  silk 
manufacture  in,  57,  note  2;  settlers 
from,  at  Rye,  17  ;  effort  to  con- 
centrate foreign  trade  in,  69  ; 
paviour  from,  employed  at  South- 
ampton, 18,  note  ;  great  play  acted 
in,  145 
Longport,  Canterbury,  disputes 

about  rights  of  arrest  in,  372 
Liibeck,    head     of    the     Hanseatic 
League,  81,  82  ;  succeeds  to  finan- 
cial importance  of  Florence,  79  ; 
its  merchants  farm  the  English 
wool  tax,    83 ;    lend   money    to 
Edward   III.,   ib.  ;  rent  English 
mines,  ib. 
Lucas,  Hugh,  arrest  of,  in  Exeter, 

351 

Lydd,  expenses  incurred  in  war, 
415,  note  4 ;  fine  for  refusing 
to  take  journey  on  town 
business  in,  187  ;  incorporation 
under  mayor  and  jurats,  398, 
note  2  ;  assessment  of  income 
tax,  139,  note  2  ;  imitates  Romney 
jetty,  143, note  ;  liberties  given  by 
Edward  I.  to,  410  ;  quarrel  with 
Battle  about  boundaries,  41 1 ;  loan 
to  Thomas  Dygon,  139;  minstrels 
at,  147  ;  plays,  &c.,  at,  148  ;  pro- 
vision for  poor  in,  41,  note  2  ; 
Portuguese  in,  122,  note;  use  of 
archbishop's  seal  in,  410 ;  its 
services  at  archbishop's  court  com- 
muted for  yearly  payment,  409, 
410  ;  its  hired  ships,  87 ;  style 
under  Henry  VI.,  410  ;  subjec- 
tion to  Romney,  410,  411  ;  town 
clerk,  411 ;  watch  on  S.  John's 
Eve,  148 

Lynn  under  Bishop  of  Norwich, 
227,  282 ;  granted  by  Bishop 
Herbert  to  monks  of  Norwich, 
282  ;  repurchased,  283-4  ;  char- 
ters from  John,  283 ;  of  1335, 
289  ;  from  bishop,  290 ;  struggle 
between  bishop  and  town,  287- 
294 ;  petition  for  relief  from 
demands  of  king's  bailiffs,  285, 
note  1  ;  expenses  of  bribes,  214, 
note  3  ;  Church  of  St.  Margaret, 
283 ;  disputes  with  the  lords  of 


Castle  Rising,  284-5  ;  various 
courts  held  by  the  Bishop  of 
Norwich,  285-6 ;  courts  leased 
by  bishop  to  burghers,  294 ; 
municipal  debt,  140,  note  1 ;  fran- 
chise controlled  by  the  Bishop  of 
Norwich,  286  ;  dispute  about  the 
view  of  frankpledge,  290,  294 ; 
guildhall,  283 ;  guild  of  mer- 
chants, 89  ;  Guild  Merchant,  286, 
288  ;  house  of  the  Hanseatic 
League,  110 ;  cross  set  up  by 
hermit  at,  175,  note  ;  "Inferiores," 
193,  note ;  Jewry,  283  ;  Leet 
court,  288,  294  ;  Tolbooth  court, 
286,  288;  the  authority  of  the 
mayor  limited  by  the  Bishop 
of  Norwich,  286  ;  disputes  of 
merchants  with  the  Hanse,  91, 
note  2  ;  lends  money  to  the  king, 
27,  note  2 ;  payment  of  players, 
145,  note  ;  growth  of  shipping, 
87  ;  taxation  for  Church  expenses, 
158,  note  3 ;  trade  with  Iceland 
forbidden,  107,  note  1  ;  wealth 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  286  ; 
proving  of  wills  at,  289 
"  Lyvelode,"  139 


M 


Maces,  at  Canterbury,  381  ;  Exe- 
ter, 339,  367  ;  Norwich,  246  ; 
Reading,  306  ;  Romney,  406 

Maintenance,  statute  of,  221,  note  1  ; 
town  laws  against,  257 

Malmesbury,  dispute  about  guild  at, 
302,  note  2 

"  Maltodes,"  139 

Malvern,  fifteenth  century  glass  at, 
56,  note  4 

Manchester,  qualifications  of  burgh- 
ers in,  170,  note  2 ;  charter,  181, 
note  3 

Mancroft,  ward  in  Norwich,  240 

Manufactures,  growth  of,  in  England 
in  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  cen- 
turies, 44, 45,  67  ;  of  cloth,  52-54  ; 
of  wool,  in  Normandy,  119 

Manufacturers,  rivalry  with  mer- 
chants, 68 

Marienburg,  treaty  of  commerce 
made  at,  104,  note  6 


430 


INDEX 


Mariners  of  England  and  France, 
agreement  between,  396,  note  3 

Market,  the  king's  clerk  of,  208  ; 
payments  for  freedom  of,  192  ; 
market  at  Barnstaple,  253,  note  3  ; 
Canterbury,  371-2,  377-380  ;  Exe- 
ter, 359,  360 

Marshal  of  king's  house,  extent  of 
his  jurisdiction,  209 

Mastez  in  Sandwich,  184,  note  5 

Matthyessone,  Gerard,  Dutch  en- 
gineer employed  at  Romney,  143, 
note 

Mayor,  election  of,  12  ;  its  connex- 
ion with  settlement  of  fee-farm 
rent,  218,  note  1  ;  various  offices 
given  to,  231,  233,  234,  236  ; 
position  between  the  king  and 
townspeople,  236-7  ;  of  Bristol, 
charter  to  the,  313  ;  his 
daughter's  marriage  with  Lord 
Berkeley,  316  ;  of  Canterbury, 
his  office  respecting  pilgrims, 
376 ;  of  Exeter,  his  depen- 
dence on  the  Earl  of  Devon- 
shire, 339  ;  of  Fordwich,  his 
jurisdiction,  412  ;  of  Hythe,  408, 
note  ;  of  Leicester,  dispute  about 
election  of,  235,  note  2 ;  of 
Liverpool,  first  election  of,  218, 
note,  271  ;  of  Lydd,  398,  note 
2  ;  of  Lynn,  his  authority 
limited  by  Bishop  of  Norwich, 
286 ;  dispute  with  the  Bishop 
about  jurisdiction,  289-94 ;  his 
sword,  293  ;  of  Norwich,  rights 
of  jurisdiction  given  to,  in  1403, 
245-6 ;  made  mayor  of  Staple, 
245  ;  his  salary,  ib.  ;  his  sword 
and  maces,  246  ;  appointed  King's 
Escheator  in  Norwich,  ib.  ;  of 
Reading,  provision  for  his  salary, 
300,  304,  305 ;  his  mace,  306 ; 
disputes  about  election,  ib., 
307  ;  of  Romney,  409  ;  deposed  by 
Privy  Seal,  407  ;  of  Sandwich, 
400  ;  his  power  to  arrest  on  sus- 
picion, 184,  note  5 ;  of  Winchester, 
325  ;  of  the  Staple,  46,  48 

Mediterranean,  its  trade,  77,  78 

Melton,  action  against  townsmen  for 
not  baking  bread  at  lord's  oven  in, 
199,  note  I 


Memling's  Last  Judgement,  its  ad- 
ventures, 109,  note  2 

Mendip,  mines  in,  55 

Mercers  of  York,  89,  note  2 

Merchant  Guild,  see  Guild  Merchant 

Merchants,  their  aversion  from 
foreign  war,  64 ;  rivalry  with 
manufacturers,  68 ;  associations 
of,  88  ;  increase  in  their  number, 
89  ;  Fellowship  of,  at  Bristol,  ib.; 
guild  of,  at  Lynn,  ib.  ;  Italian, 
their  privileges  in  England,  78  ; 
of  London,  seek  to  monopolize 
foreign  trade,  69  ;  Statute  of,  156 

Middlesex  annexed  to  London,  219, 
note  3 

Mill  of  feudal  lord,  199  ;  at  Can- 
terbury, 371-2,  380-1 

Mines,  English,  55  ;  rented  by 
Liibeck  merchants,  83 

Miners  of  Mendip,  riot  of,  55 ;  of 
Sussex,  415 

Minstrels,  147  ;  of  Canterbury,  145 

Mint  at  Calais,  49 

Moleyns,  Bishop  of  Chichester,  his 
Libel  of  English  Policy,  61,  62 

Molyneux,  Sir  Richard,  his  relations 
with  Liverpool,  273-276 

Monkenkey,  Sandwich,  owned  by 
Christ  Church,  Canterbury,  400 

Montault,  Robert  of,  his  struggle 
with  Lynn,  284-5 

Montfort,  Simon  de,  Norwich  and 
Winchester  against,  242  ;  support- 
ed by  Cinque  Ports,  388,  note  5 

Moot  Hall  at  Colchester,  14 

Morgespeche  of  Guild  of  Reading, 
303 

Morpeth,  227 

Mortmain,  Statute  of,  219,  246-7  ; 
extended  to  cities  and  boroughs, 
219,  note  2 

Morton,  Cardinal,  211,  note,  376-7 

Music,  its  developement  in  England 
in  fifteenth  century,  44 


N 


"  Natives,"    their  distinction  from 

citizens  in  Hereford,  318 
Navigation  Act,  the  first,  84  ;  put 

in  force  by  Henry  VII.,  94;  of- 

1489, 112,  119 


INDEX 


431 


Navy,  mediaeval  idea  of  its  origin 
and  use,75  ;  planned  by  Henry  V., 
86  ;  merchant,  its  character,  92  ; 
its  inefficiency  as  a  royal  navy, 
93 

Netherlands,  rivalry  with  England 
in  the  cloth  trade,  65,  66  ;  English 
traders  in,  98-101 
Newgate,  leet  of,  in  Norwich,  242, 

243 

Nicholas  of  the  Tower  (ship),  89 
Nibley  Green,  battle  of,  267,  316 
Nobles,   their  patronage  sought  by 
towns,    216  ;    honours    paid  to, 
256  ;    dress  and   state,  ib.,  257  ; 
decay  and  poverty,  257  ;    stores 
of  treasure,    259  ;    money    diffi- 
culties,   ib.  ;    dependents,     260 ; 
borrowing     and     debts,     261-2  ; 
leasing  out  privileges   to  towns- 
people,  263  ;    frequent  absences 
from  home,  264,  265  ;  heavy  con- 
sequences of  rebellions  and  civil 
wars  to,  265-266  ;  feuds  and  law- 
suits, 266-268 
Non-burgesses,  193-196 
Norfolk,  cloth-making  in,  52,  note  1  ; 
worsted  manufacture,  54  ;  increase 
of  lawsuits,  58  ;  traders  robbed  by 
Danes,  91 

Normandy,  beginning  of  its  woollen 
manufactures,   119 ;    Henry    I.'s 
charters  to  towns  in,  172,  note  1 
Northampton,  charter  of,  238,  note 
2  ;  collection  of  arrears  of  ferm, 
205-6 
Norton  Mandeville,  cloth  sold  at, 

54,  note  1 

Norwich,  its  condition  before 
Henry  II. 's  time,  238  ;  charter  of 
Richard  I.,  ib.;  of  Henry  III., 
242  ;  of  Edward  I.,  ib. ;  of 
Henry  IV.,  245-6  ;  sided  with 
king  against  De  Montfort,  242  ; 
authority  exercised  by  Parliament 
over,  235,  note  2  ;  liberties  for- 
feited, 243,  247,  note  4  ;  petition 
in  1307, 243-4  ;  made  county,  245  ; 
made  staple  town,  245  ;  sues  for 
repayment  of  a  loan  to  the  king, 
27,  note  2  ;  twelve  of  its  citizens 
distrained  for  the  city's  debt  to 
the  king,  140  ;  action  in  Wars  of 


the  Roses,  37,  note  ;  under  the 
protection  of  Suffolk,  216  ;  rivalry 
with  Yarmouth,  163,  note ;  admiral 
appointed  in,  245  ;  its  burghers 
freed  from  arrest  for  debt,  242  ; 
four  bailiffs,  240,  245,  246  ; 
bell  foundries,  55,  56  ;  Borough 
Court,  239 ;  castle  fee  and  its 
tenants,  240,  241,  244,  245,  313  ; 
law  passed  to  compel  men  to  be- 
come citizens,  190  ;  church  of  S. 
George,  243 ;  exemption  from 
clerk  of  the  market,  208,  note  2, 
245  ;  ditch,  242  ;  exports  in  1374, 
88,  note  2  ;  ferm,  238  ;  provision 
for,  244  ;  guild  of  S.  George,  150 ; 
system  of  government  imitated  by 
Yarmouth  and  Colchester,  238, 
note  2  ;  inhabitants  in  thirteenth 
century,  171,  note  3 ;  increase  of 
lawsuits  in,  58  ;  four  leets,  240 ; 
leet  of  Newgate,  242,  243 ; 
amercements  ordered  by  Leet 
Court,  230,  note  3  ;  mayor  of,  his 
salary,  208,  note  1 ;  his  rights  of 
jurisdiction,  245-6  ;  his  sword 
and  maces,  246  ;  made  mayor  of 
Staple,i6. ;  made  King's  Escheator, 
ib. ;  payment  for  charter,  238 ; 
petition  against  players,  152 ; 
Provost,  238,  239;  seal,  246; 
sheriffs,  ib.;  municipal  taxation, 
royal  interference  with,  219,  note 
4,  241,  355,  note  2  ;  adventures  of 
a  thief,  243  ;  tolbooth,  239  ;  four 
wards,  239,  240  ;  towers  and  walls, 
provision  for  repairing,  245 ,  note  4 

Norwich,  Bishops  of,  see  Herbert, 
Lynn 

Nottingham,  borough  in  ancient 
demesne,  227  ;  charter,  238,  note 
2  ;  franchise  forfeited,  247,  note  4  ; 
foreigners  to  pay  .£10  for  admis- 
sion to  freedom,  178,  note  5  ;  pay- 
ment for  liberties,  232,  note  1 ; 
rights  of  taxation  given  to  the 
guild,  355,  note  2  ;  "  booners  "  in, 
141  ;  "borough  English,"  222, 
note  1  ;  bridge,  144  ;  burgages, 
172 ;  court  leet,  336,  note  3 ; 
pledges,  178,  note  4  ;  pleas  con- 
cerning trade,  58 

Novgorod,  77,  111 


432 


INDEX 


O 


Official,   the   Master,  of  the  arch- 
deacon at  Nottingham,  336,  note  3 
Onterdel,  Dutch  engineer  employed 

at  Romney,  143,  note 
Oporto,  commercial  treaty  with,  121 
Orphans,  Court  of,  41,  note  2 
Outbutchery  built  in  Reading,  304 
Oven  of  feudal  lord,  199  ;  of  house- 
holders at  Preston,  ib. 
Oxford,  first  notice  of  bricks  in,  56, 
note  3 


Palmer,  John,  of  Exeter,  41,  note  2 

Parliament,  representation  of  towns 
in,  4,  7,  24,  25  ;  Brinklow's  criti- 
cism on,  60,  note  4 ;  authority 
exercised  by,  in  Norwich,  235, 
note  2  ;  expenses  of  members  of, 
in  Winchester,  329;  see  Commons 

Paston  family,  stores  in  their  house, 
259,  note  2 

Paston,  Sir  John,  260,  265 

Paston,  Judge,  265 

Pavilion,  the,  in  Winchester^  322 

Paving  of  towns,.  18,  note 

Payments  from  towns  for  the  con- 
firmation of  charters,  211,  303  ; 
for  liberties,  232, 238  ;  for  deliver- 
ance from  feudal  obligations,  198  ; 
in  kind  at  Bridport,  204-5 

Peasant  Revolt,  196,  237 

"  Penny  prykke,"  game  of,  363 

Pershore,  Abbot  of,  his  gallows  in 
Worcester,  310 

Philip,  Archduke,  makes  Bruges  the 
staple  for  English  cloth  in  Flan- 
ders, 113,  note  3 

Picardy,  commercial  league  of,  415 

"  Piers  Ploughman,"  picture  of  Eng- 
lish life  in,  21  ;  dealings  with  the 
social  problems  of  the  day,  22  ; 
his  theory  of  King  and  Commons, 
25,  note  3,  26 

Pilgrims  to  Canterbury,  provision 
for  the  safety  and  comfort  of, 
375,  376 

Pillory,  252,  315 


Pit  and  gallows,  right  of,  2,  note 

Pirates  attack  English  Adventurers 
90,91 

Pisa,  English  wool  merchants  at, 
117 

Plays,  145-148 

Players,  petitionagainst,inNorwich, 
152 

Pledges  required  of  candidates  for 
citizenship,  178 

Plumpton  family,  their  money  diffi- 
culties, 261 

Plumpton,  Sir  John,  130 

Plumpton,  Sir  William,  265,  266, 
note  1 

Plimpton,  charter  of  Baldwin  of 
Redvers  to,  263,  note  2  ;  agree- 
ment of  the  convent  of,  with  Ply- 
mouth, 296,  note  ;  rope  yarn,  made 
at,  202 

Plymouth,  its  agreement  with 
the  convent  of  Plimpton,  296, 
note  ;  money  collected  for  S. 
Andrew's  by  church  ales,  160, 161; 
regulations  about  the  use  of  copes, 
158  ;  the  guild  of  our  Lady  and 
S.  George,  ib.-  of  Corpus  Christi, 
151  ;  incorporation  of  tailors,  ib. 

Ponthieu,  federative  republic  of, 
415 

Portmanbrok  in  Reading,  300,  304 

Portmen  in  Ipswich,  224 

Portmote,  see  Borough  Court 

Portugal  succeeds  Venice  in  the 
Eastern  trade,  121 ;  commercial 
treaty  with,  ib. 

Pratt,  William,  builds  the  first  main 
drain  at  Canterbury,  19,  20 

Preston,  its  various  lords,  253,  note 
2;  qualifications  of  burghers,  170, 
note  2  ;  their  privileges,  190,  note 
3,  198,  199 ;  punishment  for 
breach  of  public  duty,  181 

Prison  of  the  bishop,  in  Exeter,  362  ; 
freeman's,  185 ;  the  abbot's,  at 
Fordwich,  412 

Privy  Seal,  see  Seal 

Probate,  claimed  by  the  Mayor  of 
Canterbury,  200,  note  1  ;  at  Lynn, 
289 

Provost  of  Norwich,  his  election, 
238;  his  duties,  239;  replaced  by 
four  bailiffs,  240 


INDEX 


433 


Prussia,   English  traders  banished 

from,  66 
Purveyors,  the  king's,  210 


Q 

Quay  at  Fordwich,  quarrels  about 
the,  413  ;  of  Sandwich,  agreement 
between  Christ  Church  and  Sand- 
wich about,  400,  note  2 

"  Queke/'  game  of,  363 

Quo  Warranto  in  Liverpool,  270 


Radford,  Recorder  of  Exeter,  345, 
347 

Radington,  Baldwin  of,  130 

Ramsey,  carpet  and  tapestry  manu- 
factories at,  57 ;  tenants  of  King's 
Ripton  transferred  to  the  Abbey 
of,  228,  iiote 

Reading,  originally  on  royal 
demesne,  299 ;  its  subjection 
to  the  Abbot,  ib.,  227  ;  struggle 
with  him,  300,  301,  303-308  ; 
confirmation  of  charters,  303; 
archers,  16,  note  ;  view  of  arms, 
ib.  ;  bell,  304  ;  nineteen  bridges, 
301,  note  2  ;  the  Hallowed  Brook, 

304  ;  chepin  gavell  in,  299,  306  ; 
common   chest,    305,    306  ;   con- 
stable, 304,  306  ;  guild  merchant, 
300,  303,  304  ;  guildhall,  303, 304, 

305  ;   exemption  from  serving  on 
juries  granted  to  burghers,  306  ; 
loans  to  the  king,  305,  note  1 ;  the 
mayor,  his  salary,  304,  305  ;  his 
mace,   306 ;    disputes    about   his 
election,  306,  307  ;  register  of  his 
acts,    305  ;     Morgespeche,    303  ; 
Outbutchery,  304  ;  Portmanbrok, 
300,   304  ;    seal   for  cloth,   308  ; 
contribution  of  soldiers  under  Ed- 
ward VI.,  16,  note 

Reap-silver,  171,  no  te  2 
Recorder  of  Exeter,  345, 347 ;  of  Lon- 
don, 372,  378,  note  2 
Redcliffe,dispute  about  ownership  of, 
VOL.  I 


314,  315  ;  incorporated  with  Bris- 
tol, 314,  note 

Redvers,  Baldwin  of,  his  charter  to 
Plimpton,  263,  note  2 

Religion  among  English  townsfolk 
in  15th  century,  42 

Rhine,  commercial  league  of  the, 
415 

Ricart  of  Bristol,  his  notices  of 
political  events,  37,  note 

Richard  I.,  advantages  to  towns  of 
his  money  difficulties,  237  ;  his 
charters  to  towns,  238 

Richard  III.'s  dealings  with  York, 
27,  note  2 

Richard  of  Almayne,  his  grant  to 
Exeter,  357 

Riga,  Henry  VII. 's  commercial 
treaty  with,  113 

Ripon,  its  fair,  130  ;  fight  at,  in 
1441,  ib. 

Ripton,  King's,tenantsof,  transferred 
to  the  abbey  of  Ramsey,  228, 
note 

Rising,  Castle,  disputes  between  the 
lords  of,  and  the  bishop  of  Nor- 
wich. 284  ;  its  rights  in  Lynn  pass 
to  Edward  III.,  285 

Roan,  John,  Flemish  engineer  em- 
ployed at  Romney,  143,  note 

Rochelle,  its  wine  trade  with 
Romney,  88 

Rochester,  the  King's  hackney-men 
in,  209,  note  3 ;  castle  of,  owner 
of  land  in  Lydd,  409 

Roll,  the  Black,  of  Exeter,  345 

Romney  under  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury, 227  ;  member  of  Cinque 
Ports,  386  ;  ownership  of,  387, 
note  1 ;  struggle  for  freedom,  404- 
409  ;  claim  to  be  a  royal  borough, 
407-408  ;  struggle  with  Lydd, 
409,  411  ;  auditing  of  town  ac- 
counts, 139,  note  2;  bailiff,  404- 
406  ;  bell,  405,  note  1  ;  Cranmer's 
refusal  to  lease  out  bailiwick 
to  townspeople,  408-409  ;  common 
barges,  87,  88  ;  decay  of  burghers, 
403 ;  book  of  customs,  405, 
note  1  ;  commerce,  87,  88  ;  com- 
mon hall,  129,  note  2  ;  403,  405, 
note  1  ;  common  horn,  404,  405, 
note  1  ;  care  of  common  lands, 
F  F 


434 


INDEX 


136,  137  ;  decrease  of  freemen, 
190  ;  bailiffs  and  jurats  allowed  to 
hold  inns,  404,  note  2  ;  govern- 
ment by  senior  jurat,  409  ;  places 
of  assembly  of  jurats,  405,  note  1 ; 
grant  of  mayor,  409  ;  mayor  de- 
posed by  Privy  Seal,  407  ;  silver 
mace,  406  ;  payment  for  mainten- 
ance of  liberties  of  Cinque  Ports, 
390,  note  2  ;  plays  at,  148  ;  silting 
up  of  its  port,  403  ;  punishment 
of  elected  mayor  or  jurat  who 
refused  to  serve,  188 ;  seal, 
405,  note  1  ;  sluices,  143,  note  ; 
assessment  of  taxes,  402,  note  4  ; 
trade,  402-403,  88  ;  wards,  402, 
note  4 

Roofs  of  tiles  or  brick,  houses  to  be 
provided  with,  194 

Ropes,  made  at  Bridport,  202 

Rosiers,  at  Canterbury,  dispute  for 
jurisdiction  over,  135,  136 

Rother,  river,  403 

Rotherham  college,  its  red  brick, 
56,  note  3 

Rowley,  William,  120,  note 

Russia,  Henry  VII. 's  attempt  to 
secure  trade  with,  113 

Kye,ownershipof,387,  notel ;  member 
of  Cinque  Ports,  386  ;  growth,  17  ; 
auditing  of  its  accounts,139,  note  2; 
expenses  for  war,  415,  note  4  ;  tax 
for  its  fortification,  129,  note  I  ; 
London  merchants  in,  17  ;  build- 
ing of  its  quay,  142,  note  2  ;  rights 
of  sanctuary  forbidden  in,  338  ; 
its  "  schipwrite,"88,Mofe2  ;  trade, 
88 ;  gifts  to  poor,  41,  note  2 ; 
wards,  1 7 


S 


Sailors,  in  seaports,  194 

St.  Albans,  ownership  of,  227  ;  re- 
nounces its  liberties,  295,  note  2; 
its  seal,  ib. 

St.  Edmundsbury,  its  agricultural 
services,  171,  note  2  ;  dispute 
with  abbot,  296-298;  Guild  of 
Young  Men,  296,  297 ;  claims  a 
merchant  guild,  297,  298 ;  com- 
mon horn,  296  ;  seal,  298 


Salford,  qualification  for  citizenship 
in,  170,  note  2 

Salisbury,  bell  foundries  at,  55,  56  ; 
cloth  sold  at,  54,  note  1 ;  relations 
between  citizens  and  bishop,  281, 
note 

Sanctuary,  question  of,  337-8  ;  in 
Canterbury  Cathedral,  374 ;  rights 
of,  forbidden  in  Rye,  338 

Sandwich,  member  of  Cinque  Ports, 
386  ;  port  of  London,  369,  note  3  ; 
ownership,  387,  note  1,  399,  400  ; 
freedom  as  royal  borough,  402  ; 
refuses  loan  to  the  king,  27,  note 
2 ;  quarrels  with  Canterbury, 
163,  note ;  mastery  of  Fordwich, 
411-413  ;  common  assembly, 
401  ;  Hundred  court,  ib. ;  powers 
of  King's  bailiff  in,  400-402  ; 
church  of  S.  Clements,  401  ;  of 
S.  Peter,  ib. ;  engages  a  Dutch- 
man to  make  a  new  dyke,  142  ; 
harbour,  369  ;  privilege  of  burg- 
hers, 185  ;  market-place  and 
common  hall,  401 ;  the  Mastez  in, 
184,  note  5  ;  its  mayor  manager 
of  the  hospitals,  41,  note  2  ;  his 
power  to  arrest  on  suspicion,  184, 
note  5;  may  or  and  jurats,  400-402  ; 
Monkenkey,  400  ;  punishment  of 
men  charged  with  homicide  or 
theft,  221,  note  2;  of  elected 
treasurer  who  refused  to  serve, 
188  ;  penalty  for  wounding  in, 
132,  note  2 

Scarborough,  its  complaint  about 
ferrn,  247,  note  4 

"  Scavadge,"  142,  note  1 

Scot-ales,  206,  207 

Scotland,  war  with,  Morton's  de- 
mands for,  376,  377 

Scots  traders  at  Veere,  98,  note  5 

Schonen,  English  cloth  dealers  at, 
95 

Seaford,  386,  note  2 

Seaports,  their  duties,  128,  129 

Seals,  175-6  ;  English,  their  fine 
workmanship,  225,  note  •  of  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  used  in 
Lydd,  410  ;  of  Barnstaple, 
225,  note  ;  of  Doncaster,  269,  note  ; 
Ipswich,  225  ;  Liverpool,  270  ; 
Norwich,  246 ;  for  sealing  the 


INDEX 


435 


cloth  in  Reading,  308  ;  of  Rom- 
ney,  405,  note  1 ;  St.  Albans,  295, 
note  2  ;  of  S.  Edmundsbury,  298  ; 
of  Lord  Warden  of  Cinque  Ports, 
necessary  to  make  King's  writ 
valid,  387  ;  the  Great,  request 
that  only  laymen  should  nave 
charge  of,  365,  note  3  ;  the  Privy, 
writ  of,  341  ;  mayor  of  Romney 
deposed  by,  407 

Security  required  by  town  on 
admission  of  man  to  freedom, 

,  179 

Self-government  in  the  towns,  1-3, 
218 

Selling,  Prior,  of  Christ  Church, 
Canterbury,  377 

Serfs,  conditions  of  their  emancipa- 
tion in  towns,  174,  note  3 

Shepway,  court  of,  388,  391-394, 
396,  note  2 

Sheriff,  jurisdiction  of  the,  203-4  ; 
appointment  of  deputy  by,  204  ; 
assessor  and  collector  of  royal 
taxes  and  rents,  ib.  ;  duties  as 
head  of  shire  forces,  ib.;  tyranny 
and  extortion  of,  206  ;  hatred  of, 
expressed  in  popular  ballads  and 
books,  207  ;  term  of  office,  234,«ote 
3  ;  business  at  Bridport,  204  ; 
modes  of  extortion  in  Canterbury 
and  Bridgenorth,  207  ;  court  at 
Dorchester,  203,  204  ;  of  Norfolk, 
his  Curia  Comitatus  at  Norwich, 
239  ;  jurisdiction  there,  246  ;  of 
Norwich.  246 

"  Shewage/'  142,  note  1 

Shillingi'ord,  John,  338,  340-341, 
346-348,  350 

Shipbuilding  for  aliens,  86 ;  at 
Hull,  89 ;  at  Woolwich,  84,  note  1 ; 
its  costliness,  87 

Shopmen's  guild  at  Hull,  89,  note  2 

Shipping,  native  and  foreign,  regu- 
lation of,  84 ;  its  conditions  in 
England,  85,  81:5  ;  growth  in  sea- 
port towns,  87  ;  trade  taken  under 
State  protection  (1489),  112 

Ships,  English  and  foreign,  sizes 
of,  84,  note  1  ;  English,  dispute 
with  Flemish,  92,  note  2  ;  nee  Chris- 
topher, Grace,  Harry,  Nicholas, 
Trinity 


Shire  officers,  203-207  ;  freedom 
from  them,  232-3 

Shrewsbury,  wearing  of  liveries  for- 
bidden in,  268,  note  2. 

Shrewsbury,  Countess  of,  her 
agreement  with  James,  Lord  of 
Berkeley,  266 

Silk,  its  importation  forbidden,  110 ; 
manufacture,  its  beginning  in 
England,  57  ;  carried  on  by 
women  in  London,  ib.,  note  2 

Silver  mines  in  England,  55,  note  1 

Skenes,  Irish,  351 

Soke,  the  bishop's  at  Winchester, 
322 

Soldiers,  charges  of  levying  for 
royal  service,  374 

Somerset,  its  silver  mines,  55,  note  1 

Southampton,  owned  by  King,  227  ; 
burgess  imprisoned  for  its  rent, 
140,  141  ;  liberties  forfeited,  247, 
note  4 ;  its  aqueduct  and  water 
supply,  19,  note ;  constable  of 
castle,  312 ;  gallows,  2,  note ; 
licence  to  buy  and  sell  during 
S.  Giles'  Fair,  329  ;  Italian  mer- 
chants at,  78,  81, 330  ;  paving,  18, 
note  ;  provision  for  poor,  41,  note 
2 ;  ship,  85,  note  2 ;  rights  of 
Bishop  of  Winchester  in,  during 
fair  of  S.  Giles,  324,  note  3 

Spain,  English  trade  with,  120,  121 

Stalls,  in  Exeter  market  place,  360  ? 
the  Queen's,  in  Winchester,  323 

Stanley,  John  of,  130 

Stanley,  Sir  John,  his  relations  with 
Liverpool,  273-276 

Staple,  the,  45 ;  its  wanderings 
under  Edward  III.,  ib,  46  ;  fixed 
at  Calais,  ib.  ;  mayors  and  alder- 
men of,  ib,  48  ;  English  towns  of, 
46 ;  rules,  46-48  ;  authority,  48  ; 
merchants  of,  monopolize  export 
of  wool,  49  ;  of  Calais,  its  money 
transactions  with  the  captain  and 
the  Government,  ib,  50  ;  decline, 
51  ;  struggle  against  Merchant 
Adventurers,  101-103  ;  Mediter- 
ranean merchants  freed  from  its 
control,  78 ;  appointment  of 
mayor  as  mayor  of,  234  ;  set  up 
by  English  adventurers  at  Ber- 
gen, 95  ;  for  English  cloth  in 


436 


INDEX 


Flanders,    placed  at  Bruges    by 
Archduke  Philip,  113,  note  3 

Staplegate  at  Canterbury,  370 

Statute  of  Maintenance,  221,  note  1; 
of  Merchants,  156  ;  of  Mortmain, 
219,  246-7 

Steel-yard,  the,  83,  109,  110 

Steward  of  King's  house,  his  juris- 
diction, 209 

Steward's  Hall  Port  of  Lynn,  294 

Stonor,  harbour  of,  369 

Sturgeon,  Nicholas,  44,  note  1 

Sturiuys  of  Bristol,  sends  a  ship  to 
the  East,  115 

Sturry,  369 

Sudbury,  Archbishop,  374 

Suffolk,  Duke  of,  216 

Sussex,  miners  of,  their  evil  reputa- 
tion in  Middle  Ages,  415 

Svvithun,  S.,  the  convent  of,  at 
Winchester,  322,  323,  see  Win- 
chester 

Sword,  of  mayor  of  Norwich,  246  ; 
of  mayor  of  Lynn,  293 


Tailors  at  Plymouth  incorporated, 

151 

Taperaxe,  412 

Tapestry  factory  at  Ramsey,  57 
Taverner,  John,  builds  a  "carrack" 

at  Hull,  89 
Tax    on  wool  farmed   by   Liibeck 

merchants,  83 
Taxation,  changes  in,  27  note  1  ;  of 

cloth,    81,   note    1  ;   illegal,   con- 
trolled by  Commons,  25,  note  3  ; 

internal,  of  towns,  139,  355-357  ; 

interference    with,    in    Norwich, 

219,  note  4 

Temple  Fee,  Bristol,  313,  note  2 
Tennis,  game  of,  363 
Tetbury  fair,  314 
Teutonic   Order    banishes    English 

traders  from  Prussia,  66 
"  Thefeswell "  in  Fordwich,  412 
Thiefdown,  221,  note  2 
Thomas,  S.,  feast  of  translation  of. 

370 
Tin-works,     Cornish,     rented     by 

Liibeck  merchants,  83 


Tolbooth  at  Norwich,  239  ;  Court 
at  Lynn,  286,  288 ;  Port,  at  Lynn, 
294 

Toll  hall  at  Bridport,  16 
Tolls  of  cloth-exporters  and  staplers 
compared,     52 ;     on  export,   90, 
iiote    2 ;     for    Merchant    Adven- 
turers, fixed  by  charter  in  Bur- 
gundy, 96  ;  freedom  from,  granted 
to  burghers,  183 
Topsham,  359 

Totnes,  jurisdiction  of  the  lord's 
bailiff  in,  252-3;  disputes  between 
lord  and  tenants,  252  ;  poverty  in 
1449,  159  ;  wooden  belfry  re- 
placed by  stone  tower,  160  ;  Guild 
under  Henry  II.  and  John,  251  ; 
rights  claimed  by,  251-2  ;  Mer- 
chant Guild,  175,  note ;  water- 
bearers,  157,  note 

Towns,  English,  their  importance  in 
fifteenth  century,  1  ;  significance 
of  their  history,  8-10;  beginning 
of  municipal   history,    11  ;   con- 
trast of  their  history  with  that  of 
French   communes,  29-32  ;  their 
lowly  beginnings,  33  ;  relation  to 
the  Government,  27  ;  importance 
of  their  internal  administration, 
20 ;  their  contribution  to  the  re- 
organization of   society,  23,   24 ; 
progress  up  to  fourteenth  century, 
10-12  ;    in     fourteenth     century, 
13  ;  place  in  history  of  fifteenth 
century,  40-44  ;   fallen  condition 
in  1835,  5,  6  ;  attitude  in  Wars 
of  Roses,  164  ;  ratify  Henry  VII. 's 
treaties  with  Burgundy,  4  ;  their 
self-contained  and  self-dependent 
life,  125  ;  changes  in  their  condi- 
tion through  increase  of  industry 
and  commerce,  171  ;  amusements 
in,     145-153 ;     assemblies,    223  ; 
"common  barges,"  140  ;  preserva-. 
tion  of  boundaries  and  "  liberties," 
134 ;    common   lands,    136,    137  ; 
common  revenue,  139  ;  competi- 
tion and  commercial  jealousy  in, 
163  ;    corporate    property,     138  ; 
criers,  161,  162,180;   duties,  4; 
duty  of  citizens  to  chief  magistrate 
and  community,  126  ;  military  du- 
ties, 129-131  ;  military  discipline, 


INDEX 


437 


127,  128  ;  freedom  of  election,  5  ; 
its    decay,   6,    7  ;    festivals,    149, 
152,  153  ;  financial  responsibility, 
140,   165-167  ;  refusal  to  take  up 
the  franchise,  186  ;  forced  labour 
in,    141,    142  ;    extent   of    their 
jurisdiction,    3,    190-193,   333-8  ; 
right     of    criminal     jurisdiction 
in,  2  ;  election  of  mayor,  12  ;  offi- 
cers' duties  and  responsibilities, 
186  ;    representation    in    Parlia- 
ment, 4,  7,  24,  25  ;  patronage  of 
nobles  sought  by,  216  ;  paving  of, 
18,  note ;  political  feeling  in,  60, 
61  ;  privileges  forfeited,  247,  note 
3  ;   their  protection  extended  to 
men  who  were  not  free  citizens, 
189 ;  provisions  for  relief  of  the 
poor,  41,  note  2  ;  ranks  and  classes 
of  men   in,   189-196 ;    conflicting 
rights    in,    309-311  ;    their    self- 
government,    1-3  ;    self-taxation, 
2  ;  distribution  of  taxes  in,  355, 
note  2  ;  regulation  of  trade,  2,  3 ; 
watch  and  ward,  132, 133  ;  water- 
supply  in,  19;   condition  of  the 
working  classes  in,   195  ;   public 
works,  141 ;  on  ancient  demesne, 
227-229 ;     dependent    on    other 
boroughs,   227,  note;  on  ecclesi- 
astical estates,  227,  277-281  ;  on 
feudal  estates,  250-1  ;  subject  to 
monastic    rule,     295 ;     sea-port, 
their     duties    during    Hundred 
Years'    War,    128,    129;    of  the 
Staple,  46  ;  see  Boroughs 
Townspeople  lay  rectors  of  parish 
church,  157  ;  their  temper  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  165, 
Tracy,   Henry  de,  holder  of  Barn- 
staple,  253  note  3 

Trade,  its  regulation  in  towns,  2,  3  ; 
early  associations  for  protection 
of,  32  ;  increase  of  lawsuits  con- 
cerning, 58  ;  revolution  in  fif- 
teenth century,  51  ;  endeavour  to 
exclude  foreigners  from,  73 ; 
attempts  to  protect  it  from 
piracy,  91 ;  right  of,  given  to 
burghers,  182 ;  payment  for 
rights  of,  189 ;  with  the  East, 
monopolized  by  Italians,  114 ; 
diverted  from  Venice  to  Portugal, 


121  ;  English,  with  Bordeaux, 
118,  119,  316,  note  1  ;  with 
Genoa,  proposal  to  forbid,  116; 
with  the  North,  106,  107,  114  ; 
of  Florence,  78,  79 ;  foreign, 
Bishop  Moleyns's  views  of,  61 ,62  ; 
an  anonymous  "Libeller"  on,  62- 
64  ;  London  attempts  to  monopo- 
lize, 69  ;  injured  by  war  with 
France,  64,  iwte ;  of  Romney, 
403  ;  free,  adopted  by  Florence, 
117 ;  of  the  country,  formidable 
rival  to  protected  trade  of  towns, 
193 ;  between  Liverpool  and 
Ireland,  270 ;  of  the  Mediterra- 
nean, 77,  78  ;  State  protection  of, 
72,  73  ;  its  results  at  Venice,  80  ; 
by  sea,  its  early  routes,  75,  77  ; 
Venetian,  bill  against,  proposed 
in  Parliament,  115  ;  of  Winches- 
ter, 324,  328;  in  beer,  with 
Flanders,  57 ;  in  cloth,  its 
rise,  51-54,  94,  95  ;  rivalry  in,  be- 
tween England  and  Flanders,  65- 
66 ;  in  iron,  54  ;  in  wool,  45,  49, 
51 ;  in  wine,  between  Aquitaine 
and  England,  118-120;  from 
Rochelle  to  Romney,  88 ;  struggle 
between  England  and  Venice  lor, 
116-118;  licenses  for  trade  given 
to  lords  of  Berkeley,  316,  note  1 

Traders  in  the  towns,  189-192  ; 
privileged,  living  outside  towns, 
192-3 

Treaties  of  commerce,  Henry  VII. 's, 
66;  with  Brittany,  112;  with 
Castile  and  Catalonia,  120 ; 
Henry  VI  I. 's,  with  Florence, 
117;  with  Portugal,  121;  with 
Riga  and  Scandinavia,  113;  of 
Marienburg,  104,  note  6;  of 
Utrecht,  110;  of  1475,  1486, 
1495,  119,  note  2  :  of  1496  (Inter- 
cursus  Magnus),  112 

Trials,  complaint  about,  in  Lincoln, 
336-7 

Trinity  of  Berkeley  (ship),  316  note  I 

Tumbril,  252,  315 

U 

Under-sheriff,  appointed  by  sheriff, 
204 


438 


INDEX 


Unenfranchised  class,   increase  of, 

in  towns,  196 
Utrecht,    treaty    with    the    Hanse 

made  at  (1474),  110;    confirmed 

by  Henry  VII.,  112 


Veere,  depot  of  Scottish  traders  at, 

98,  note  5 
Venice,    its    state-protected    trade, 

80  ;  its  trade  with  Southampton, 

81  ;    diverted  to   Portugal,  121  ; 
bill   to  forbid  its  carrying  trade 
proposed    in     Parliament,     115  ; 
driven     out      of     Egypt,      114; 
struggle    of    English    merchants 
with,   116  ;  Henry  VII.'s  agree- 
ment with,  118 

Vitalien  Briider,  90 


W 


Waits,  145 

Walls,  provision  for  repairing  in 
Norwich,  245,  note  4 

Wards  in  Norwich,  239,  240  ;  in 
Romney,  402,  note  4  ;  in  Rye,  17 

Warden,  the  Lord,  of  the  Cinque 
Ports,  towns  under  the  rule  of, 
386  ;  his  authority,  390-394  ; 
powers  as  Constable  of  Dover 
Castle,  as  Admiral,  as  Chancellor, 
392  ;  his  seal,  necessary  to  make 
King's  writs  valid,  387 

Warden  of  the  Poor  at  Exeter,  41, 
note  2 

Warwick,  its  various  lords,  309  310 

Warwick,  Earl  of,  the  Kingmaker 
257-8,  415 

Watch  and  ward,  132,  133  ;  con- 
troversy about  in  Exeter,  357-8 

Water  supply  in  towns,  19,  note 

Wayneflete,  Bishop  of  Winchester, 
326,  note 

Weald,  iron  trade  in,  54 

Weavers  of  Chester,  their  riot  in 
1399,  130,  note  1  ;  English  and 
foreign,  their  rivalry,  65  ;  Flem- 
ish, their  struggle  against  import- 
ation of  English  cloth,  99-101  ; 
in  Bristol,  193 


Weights  and  Measures,  Act  of  1429, 
3,  note 

Wells,  under  Bishop  of  Wells,  227  ; 
fees  in  kind  at,  178 

Westgate,  Canterbury,  381  ;  Arch- 
bishop's tenants  of,  370 

Westminster,  silk  manufactory  at, 
57,  note  2  ;  Abbot  of,  his  gallows 
in  Worcester,  310 

Westwick,  ward  in  Norwich,  240 

Weymouth,  ownership  of,  227 

Whitstable,  rights  claimed  by  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury's  tenants, 
of,  371 

Wikham,  John,  "  schigwrite "  of 
Rye,  88,  note  2 

Wills,  enrolled  in  borough  courts, 
200,  note  I  ;  probate  of,  at  Lynn, 
289  ;  claimed  by  Mayor  of  Can- 
terbury, 200,  note  I 

Winchelsea,  ownership  of,  387  note  1 ; 
member  of  Cinque  Ports,  386  ; 
punishment  of  thief  at,  221,  note  2 

Winchester,  owned  by  King,  227  ; 
charter,  238,  note  2  ;  sided  with 
King  against  De  Montfort,  242  ; 
its  reputed  antiquity,  321  ;  pover- 
ty, 190  ;  decrease  of  freemen,  ib. ; 
dispute  between  bishops  and 
burghers,  323  ;  fight  between  citi- 
zens and  monks,  324,  note  2  ; 
distress  and  poverty  in  fifteenth 
century,  326-330  ;  Lancastrian 
sympathies,  326,  note  ;  heavy  bur- 
dens, 327-9  ;  petition  of  burghers 
to  Henry  VI.,  328,  329  ;  ferm, 
fines,  and  expenses  in  1450,  ib. ; 
grant  of  forty  marks  to,  from 
ulnage  and  subsidies  of  cloths, 
329  ;  various  alien  bodies  within 
its  liberties,  322-324  ;  common  as- 
sembly, 321  ;  boundaries,  322  ; 
castle,  ib.  ;  corporation,  321  ; 
curfew  bell,  324;  S.  Giles'  fair, 
324,  329  ;  fraternity  of  S.  John, 
its  payment  towards  maintenance 
of  walls  and  bridges,  329,  note  2  ; 
provision  for  ferm,  328,  note  2  ; 
franchise  refused,  328  ;  experi- 
ment in  free-trade,  ib.  ;  friars, 
323;  Magdalen  hospital,  328, 
329  ;  mayor,  325  :  control  of 
gates,  324 ;  liberty  of  Godbeate, 


INDEX 


439 


ib.  ;  Guildhall,  324  ;  High  Street, 
322,  323  ;  Italian  merchants  in, 
330 ;  King's  officers  in,  325  ; 
town  officers,  321,  322  ;  expenses 
of  burgesses  to  Parliament,  329  ; 
Pavilion,  322  ;  perambulation  of 
liberties,  ib.  ;  the  Queen's  House, 
323  ;  Queen's  stalls,  ib.  ;  convent 
of  S.  Swithun,  322  ;  Bishop  of, 
bribes  to,  214  ;  his  authority  over 
trade,  324  ;  palace,  322  ;  rights 
of  his  tenants,  322-3  ;  Soke,  322 

Windsor,  Dean  of,  gift  from  Canter- 
bury to,  214 

Wines,  variety  of,  215  ;  Rhine, 
ordered  to  be  carried  only  in 
English  ships,  110  ;  see  Trade 

"  Wine  gavell "  in  Exeter,  359 

Wingham,  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury's tenants  of,  370-1 

Women  carry  on  silk  manufacture 
in  London,  57,  note  2  ;  their  man- 
agement of  great  estates,  265 

Wool,  beginning  of  its  manufacture 
in  Normandy,  119 ;  export  of, 
45,  49 ;  under  Edward  III., 
50  :  decrease  in  fifteenth  century, 
51 ;  tax  on,  49 ;  farmed  by 
Liibeck  merchants,  83 

Wool  Hall  at  Colchester,  14 

Wool-growers,  rivalry  with  cloth- 
manufacturers,  68 

Woolwich,  ship  built  at,  84,  note  1 

Worcester,  protection  of  burghers, 
184  ;  law  passed  to  compel  men 
to  become  citizens,  190 ;  com- 
mon coffer,  138,  note  ;  "Great 
Clothing,"  ib. ;  gallows,  310 ; 
hospital  of  S.  John,  357  note  4 


Working-classes  in  towns,  condition 
of  the,  195 

Worsted  manufacture  in  Norfolk, 
54 

Wynde,  burgesses  of  the,  in  Barn- 
staple,  254 


Yarmouth,  owned  by  King,  227  ; 
rivalry  with  Norwich,  163,  note  : 
made  staple  town,  ib. ;  imitates 
Norwich  system  of  government, 
238,  note  2  ;  riotous  population 
of  sailors,  194  ;  threatens  monopo- 
ly of  Cinque  Ports,  394 ;  its  fair, 
395,  396,  415 

Yaxley,  church-ales  at,  161,  note 

Year  gift,  206 

York,  owned  by  King,  227  ;  its  cor- 
poration made  justiciars  for  pre- 
serving rivers,  234,  note  2 ;  deal- 
ings with  Richard  III.,  27,  note  2  ; 
reception  of  Duke  of  Gloucester, 
216,  217  ;  guilds  at,  42,  note  ; 
89,  note  2  ;  mercers  at,  89,  note 
2 ;  territory,  3,  note ;  its  fran- 
chise, 196  ;  dispute  about  payment 
of  troops,  131,  note  3 ;  riot  about 
common  lands,  137,  note  2 

York,  Archbishop  of,  his  attack  on 
Ripon  in  1441,  130 

York,  Duchess  of,  gifts  from  Canter- 
bury to,  215 

Yorkshire,  early  brick  buildings  in, 
56,  note  3 

Ypres,  decline  of  its  weaving  trade, 
65 


END    OF   VOL.    I. 


RICHARD  CLAY  AND  SONS,  LIMITED, 
LONDON  AND  BUNGAY. 


Date  Due 


MAR  2 


Ull 


»  W4 


Library  Bureau  Cat.  No.  1137 


